1 September 2009

Half Year Results for the six months to 30 June 2009

Savills plc, the international real estate advisor, announces its unaudited results for the six months to 30 June 2009.

Headlines

• Group revenue of £247.6m (2008: £278.1m)
• Group profit before tax of £0.1m (2008: £33.4m)
• Underlying Group profit before tax* of £2.5m (2008: £19.2m)
• Basic earnings per share of 0.7p (2008: 23.2p)
• Underlying basic earnings per share of 1.3p (2008: 10.0p)
• Interim dividend of 3.0p (2008: 6.0p)
• Net debt of £0.4m (2008: £5.9m)
• Strong second quarter in UK Residential and Asia Pacific offset by difficult trading across commercial transaction advisory businesses worldwide
• Strong growth of Property and Facilities Management which now represents 43% of Group revenues (2008: 31%) and provides a resilient earnings stream
• Further £20m of cost savings achieved; on track to achieve at least £50m annualised savings by the year end

* After adjusting for certain share based payments (£1.0m) and the amortisation of acquired intangible assets (£1.4m)

Commenting on the results, Jeremy Helsby, Group Chief Executive of Savills plc, said:

“These results clearly demonstrate Savills' resilience in some of the toughest trading conditions in decades. To generate a profit is testament to the diversification of our business and the quality and determination of our teams around the world.

We continue to shape our organisation to withstand the challenging conditions faced by the sector, particularly in markets such as Continental Europe and the US. We remain on track to achieve at least £50m annualised savings by the year end.

Although there have been some recent signs of improvement in some areas of UK Residential and the Asia Pacific regions, property markets generally are still suffering from a lack of debt finance, shortage of quality product and concerns over the impact of recession upon occupiers. Against this backdrop we continue to adopt a cautious outlook as predicting the timing of sustainable improvement in our markets remains difficult.

We continue to position the business to ensure that we have the breadth of offering, quality of people and financial strength to serve our clients well, regardless of the state of the market, and also to benefit significantly when conditions improve.”

For further information, contact:

Savills +44 (0)20 7409 8844
Jeremy Helsby, Group Chief Executive
Simon Shaw, Group Chief Financial Officer
Tulchan Communications +44 (0)20 7353 4200
John Sunnucks

View the Half Year Results 2009 in PDF format
View the Half Year Results Presentation in PDF format