Interactive Investor

Crest Nicholson's forward sales up 50%

26th March 2014 15:31

Ceri Jones from interactive investor

Crest Nicholson's shares rose on Wednesday to 386p as news spread that non-executive director Jim Pettigrew bought 25,000 shares at a price of 383p.

Scotsman Pettigrew is a particularly knowledgeable director with senior experience in financials at RBC Europe, CMC Markets, Hermes and Aberdeen AM and was chairman of The Edinburgh Investment Trust. He is attributed with working a Midas touch at broker dealer Icap where he was finance director and for building up the fixed income specialist Ashmore Group.

The shares were purchased on Friday just as the housebuilder dropped after its largest publicly disclosed shareholder, Deutsche Bank, disposed of around 16.5 million shares. Crest Nicholson returned to the stockmarket in February 2013 in a listing which valued it at £553 million.

The German bank and Varde Management had already sold a 13.5% holding in the housebuilder via an accelerated book building last September. The recent sale concerned Deutsche Bank's remaining 9% stake.

Like rival Bellway, which announced interims this morning, Crest is benefiting from the buoyancy of the housing market, low interest rates and government initiatives such as Help to Buy. The housebuilder said forward sales for 2014 and beyond were up by 50% compared with last year.

Last week it confirmed that it is on track to deliver approximately 2,500 new homes in 2014, and that it is continuing to add value to its land bank by purchasing additional sites in attractive Southern locations, with six sites added year-to-date, making a total of 389 plots acquired at an estimated gross development value of £167 million.

Sufficient plots have now been secured to deliver its forecast volumes for 2014, 2015 and almost for 2016.