Quintain slashes debt by £91m

Developer Quintain reduced its debt by £91m last year to enable it to undertake further construction work.

In its results for the year to 31 March 2013, announced to the City this morning, the firm reported it had net debt of £444m, down from £535m the year before.

This puts the firm on course to meet its target of reducing debt to £400m by March 2014.

In the results the firm said: “Our initial target is to reduce net debt levels permanently to below £400 million by March 2014. In order to give us operational flexibility and the ability to fund the current development pipeline, we have also been actively re-phasing short term maturities in addition to extending debt out to March 2016.”

Quintain reported pre-tax profit of £8.2m up from £5.8m over the period.

Max James, chief executive of Quintain, said the market remained “challenging”.

But he added: “At a time of strong demand for new homes at price points that cater for London’s young professionals, Quintain is well placed to maximise value from one of the largest consented residential land banks in London.”

The firm has two major housing development project at Wembley and Greenwich Peninsula, which will form the focus of its development work this year.