Resilient Result in an Unprecedented Property Market

Savills plc, the international real estate advisor, is pleased to announce its results for the year ended 31 December 2009.

Highlights

• Strong second half performance from Asia Pacific transactional business
• Strong performance from UK Residential business
• UK Commercial business strengthened in fourth quarter
• Cost savings of £62m achieved in the year
• Selective investment in new teams and individual recruitments

Key Financial Information

Underlying Results*

• Revenue: £560.7m (2008: £568.5m) (1.4% down; 7.6% down in constant currency)
• Underlying profit before tax: £25.2m (2008: £33.2m)*
• Underlying basic earnings per share: 14.5p (2008: 18.1p)*
• Year end net cash: £66.3m (2008: £45.7m) 

Reported IFRS results

• Revenue: £560.7m (2008: £568.5m)
• Profit before tax: £13.5m (2008: loss £7.7m)
• Basic earnings per share: 7.3p (2008: loss 9.3p)
• Second interim dividend: 6.0p per share (2008: nil), making 9.0p for the year (2008: 9.0p)

* Underlying profit is calculated by adjusting reported pre-tax profit by exceptional items, profit on disposals, share-based payment adjustment and impairment and amortisation of goodwill and intangibles (excluding software).

Jeremy Helsby, Group Chief Executive of Savills plc, commented:

“I am pleased to report a resilient performance across the group with significant improvement in the second half of  the year. In particular, UK Residential performed strongly as markets recovered and the performance of our Asia Pacific businesses, which now represent 38% of the group’s revenues, endorsed our strategic decision to expand in this region.

“Notwithstanding the improvement in the second half, market conditions remain unpredictable. We have reduced costs significantly across the Group whilst maintaining the operating capacity of our transaction teams around the world to take advantage of improvements in market conditions.

“Against this backdrop we maintain a cautious stance and anticipate that our overall performance in 2010 will be similar to that of 2009, although the relative contributions of our individual businesses may be somewhat different.  We remain, however, well positioned with a strong balance sheet to continue our strategy of building the business and pursuing selected investment opportunities should they arise.”

Savills plc, the international real estate advisor, publishes the following update on its outlook for 2009:

In recent weeks we have seen:

   -  continued strength in the transaction markets of the Asia Pacific region at a time when we were anticipating a degree of cooling of the market; 
   -  an increase in transactions in the UK Commercial market which are likely to complete before year end; and                                       
   -  a higher than expected level of transactions in the UK prime residential market.                                                                

We have also achieved cost savings at the higher end of our anticipated range. The combination of these factors means that we expect Savills' underlying performance for 2009 to be significantly ahead of our previous expectations. However we remain cautious about the sustainability of the current performance of UK residential and Asia Pacific transaction markets
in 2010.

A recording is available (until 30 March 2010) of the CEO and CFO delivering the 2009 End of year results presentation. You can access this by dialling one of the numbers below and entering the confirmation access code when prompted.

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+46 (0)8 5051 3897 - Sweden
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