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Estate agency Savills (LON:SVS) revealed that pre-tax profits for the six months ended 30th June dropped by 18% to £26.7 million as the company continued to spend on acquisitions despite slow revenue growth. Revenues continued to grow quickly in European markets but fell in Asia Pacific and North America, leading to 2% growth across the group as a whole.
Management said that a strong pipeline of opportunities and the strength of the firm’s non-transactional businesses would allow it to meet full year expectations, but shares in the company fell by 5.09% to 820p (as of 12:45 BST).
CEO Jeremy Helsby commented: “In the face of some challenging market conditions, Savills has delivered a resilient first half performance reflecting our geographic diversity, breadth of operations, recent business investment activity and the strength of our UK residential business.
In line with our overall growth strategy, we have continued to invest across the business, which has affected profits in the short term. During the period we completed the acquisition of Cluttons Middle East, providing Savills a strategic platform for growth in this region. In addition, in the UK we further enhanced our leading property management platform announcing the acquisition of the third party property management portfolio of ‘Broadgate Estates’ from British Land“.