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Strong second half for Savills

Things started looking up for estate agent Savills in the second half of 2009, particularly in the Asia Pacific region and in the UK residential market.

The company's revenue eased to £560.7m in 2009 from £568.5m in 2008, with all business activities showing a decline except for Property Management, where fees earned rose 12.4% to £215.2m from £191.4m the year before.

Underlying profit before tax fell 24.1% to £25.2m from £33.2m. Once again, all business activities except one showed a fall, only this time round it was the Transaction Advice business which showed an improvement, with profit virtually doubling to £6.3m to £3.2m.

Reported profit before tax was £13.5m versus a loss the year before of £7.7m. Amortisation and impairment of intangible assets was less of a feature in 2009 at £7.9m, compared to £42m in 2008.

'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,' claimed Jeremy Helsby, group chief executive of Savills.

'Notwithstanding the improvement in the second half, market conditions remain unpredictable,' Helsby added.

The company is paying a second interim dividend of 6p in lieu of a final dividend in order to beat the deadline for the introduction of new tax rates for high earners. Dividend payments for the whole of 2009 remain unchanged from 2008 at 9p.

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