Connells protests about its true profits

The Connells Group made a pre-tax profit of £37m in 2008, the business has said.

The company put out a statement, saying it wanted to clarify earlier comments about Connells’ profits from parent company Skipton Building Society. Skipton had referred to Connells profits for 2008 as being £10m.

But Connells has insisted that it had reported a pre-tax profit of £37m, which it called “a remarkable achievement in the worst housing market in living memory”.

Group chairman Stephen Shipperley said: “The £37m profit is from the whole of our business. 

“If you were to exclude the profit we made from the sale of our Rightmove shares and one-off profits of a non-trading nature, then the profit figure would still be over £10m.” 

He went on to stress that the £10m profit figure quoted by Skipton is after the deduction of all costs and provisions relating to measures such as branch closures and staff redundancy costs which Connells made during 2008.  

“After adjusting for non-trading costs, our underlying group operating profit was £24m,” Shipperley said.

 “We closed some branches (25 in total) but only did so as a last resort. Maintaining and, in due course, strengthening our branch network is a key part of our strategy for the future.

“Whilst I am clearly disappointed that our results have declined for the first time in eight years, I am also very proud that we managed to achieve over £37m profit in what were undoubtedly the most difficult trading conditions I can ever recall. 

“Our results are a testament to the hard work and endeavour of all our staff and also demonstrate the value of our very experienced, long-standing middle and senior management team who have been through challenging markets before. 

“They know what ‘Plan B’ is and, as our results show, have been pretty effective at putting it into practice.”