Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Barclays Results Presentation for the Year Ended 30th April 2021. I am Rob Perrins, Chief Executive of the Barclays Group. Following my introductory remarks, I will hand over to Richard Stern, our Chief Financial Officer, to run through the financial results. I will then provide an update on Barclays' unique operating model and how this has led to these great results. We are conscious that we are just 3 days away from the 1st anniversary of the sudden passing of Barclays Founder and former Chairman, Tony Pitchley.
Tony loved these occasions and he is much missed by us all. His values and principles of place making remain fundamental to us. In introducing the results, I'd like to highlight the following. Firstly, the pace and agility with which Barclays adapted to the onset of COVID-nineteen, which enabled us to stay in production throughout, meet our commitments to customers, communities and partners and to deliver today's results. This is down to our operating model and financial strength, but most of all, our people and supply chain.
And I'd like to register my admiration and thanks to all of them for their incredible diligence and expertise, which has allowed them to perform despite the challenges they have faced. Secondly, we have launched our Vision 2,030, transforming tomorrow. This business strategy links our purpose, values and sustainable business model through 10 strategic priority areas. It includes science based targets for climate change and reinforces our commitment to net biodiversity gain and our holistic approach to place making and creating sustainable communities. 3rd, we are in great financial shape, as Richard will demonstrate, and we have added nearly 7,000 homes to our unrivaled land holdings with 7,000 more identified in our near term pipeline.
This is a fantastic platform from which to continue serving the country's most unsupplied housing markets from our 29 large regeneration sites, which underpin the business plan for the next 10 years. The progress made in the last year and our cash position provides us with the visibility to return the first €230,000,000 of surplus capital to shareholders with the remaining GBP225,000,000 retained for allocation to incremental land investment over the next 2 years. We are, of course, always mindful of the cyclical and regulatory risk of the operating environment, and this will continue to shape our approach to strategy and capital allocation. I will return to each of these points later, but will now hand over to Richard to run through the results.
Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. I will take you through the results today, beginning with a summary, then touching on the drivers of revenue and profitability before looking in more detail at the income statement, Cash flow and balance sheet, finishing with the landholders. So beginning as always with a summary of performance for the year. We have delivered CHF518,100,000 of pre tax profit, up 2.9% from CHF 503,700,000 last year, in line with the guidance given during the year. Earnings per share is up 4.5% to 339.4p.
This is slightly higher than the increase in pretax profits due to share buybacks in the year. The operating margin is 22.8%, which compares to 24.5% in the prior year. Pretax return on equity was 16.5%, similar to last year and remaining ahead of the 15% long term baseline. Looking at the financial position of the company, shareholders' funds or net assets are now GBP 3,200,000,000 with net asset value per share up 5.7 percent
to £26.12
enhanced by the purchase of 4,400,000 shares in the year. Shares in Issued have reduced from 125,500,000 at the start of the year to 121,600,000 at the 30th April 2021. This is due to the net effect of those 4,400,000 shares acquired and 0 500,000 shares issued to meet share based payments. Net cash is GBP 1,100,000,000 similar to the start of the year, and I will look at the cash flow in more detail later in the presentation. In terms of future visibility, we have cash due on forward sales covering the next 3 years of GBP 1,700,000,000 in line with our guidance.
Around 55% of this relates to 2021, 2022, 35% to 2022, 'twenty 3 and a balance thereafter. The estimated future gross margin in our land holdings has increased to GBP 6,900,000,000 and I will look at this in more detail later. This slide highlights the key components of revenue and profitability. We sold 2,825 homes at an average selling price of £770,000 in the year. This compares to 2,723 homes at an average selling price of GBP677,000 in the prior year.
As always, The ASP reflects the mix of properties delivered in the year. As I anticipated at the start of the year, we delivered a relatively higher proportion of London than out of London Homes this year as we focused production post first lockdown on our forward sales and we've also had a strong end to the year. Looking forward, we anticipate volumes in FY 'twenty two to be around a third higher than FY 'twenty one. ASP will be lower due to the increasing proportion of our long term regeneration sites now in production. And overall, revenue is expected to remain broadly consistent with FY 'twenty one as a result of these two movements.
So for the next 3 year period, I continue to anticipate group volumes will be around 10,500 homes in total for those 3 years, with an ASP of around £570,000 The precise timing of delivery between periods is an important variable as we will always prioritize quality over annual profit targets. In addition to the group delivery, joint ventures delivered 4 29 homes in the year at an average selling price of £680,000 This compares to 435 sales at an average price of £723,000 in the prior year. The ASP reduction is driven by a mix of properties delivered with a slightly increased proportion of out of London homes delivered in St. Edward this year. The profit contribution from JVs has fallen by around onethree in line with our guidance.
From here, we expect contributions to at least double in the next year and then increase again approximately twofold in the following year. Taken together with the guidance on volumes and average selling price for the group, This means that the net profit for the next 2 years will be similar to 2020, 2021 before increasing thereafter. This remains aligned with our long term guidance to achieve a pre tax return on equity of at least 15% per annum. The long term trajectory will continue to see average selling price reduce towards the land bank level and volumes looking to double current levels by FY 'twenty five for both the group and JVs collectively. I say double here.
This equates to the guidance in the statement of increasing by 50% from the pre pandemic levels in 20 eighteen-nineteen. Turning now to the income statement. Revenue has increased by 14.7 percent to GBP 2,200,000,000 reflecting a small increase in volumes but at a higher average selling price due to the mix of completions as just explained. Gross profit is similar to last year with the gross margin reduced from 33% to 29%, reflecting the mix of properties sold, the operating environment of the last 12 months and our investment in the future to meet our Vision 2,030 commitments. Operating margin has fallen from 24.5 percent to 22.8%, the reduction offset by reduced operating costs.
We have for some time talked about the normalization of returns, which we have now achieved with a 29% gross margin closer to the long term norm of 27% to 29%, which supports an operating margin of over 20%. We anticipate these margins continuing for the foreseeable future. The profit contribution from the joint ventures reduced by about a third in the year as anticipated given the aforementioned changes to mix. Reductions in interest rates and cash deposits over the course of the year has meant that our finance costs are no longer offset by interest income, increasing net finance costs for the year by £7,000,000 The effective tax rate for the year is 18.4%, just below the statutory rate of 19%. This slide sets out the cash flows for the year, which resulted in a small decrease in net cash of £11,000,000 from £1,140,000,000 to £1,130,000,000 Essentially, We were cash neutral for the year.
£518,000,000 was generated from profits with a net outflow of 77,000,000 for working capital. This is largely accounted for by a £98,000,000 net investment in inventory, which I will run through in more detail shortly, when I will also look at the creditors in more detail. The net investment in joint ventures increased by 19,900,000 primarily due to undistributed JV profits in the year. During the year, we paid GBP 90,100,000 of tax acquired 188,600,000 of shares through share buybacks and paid dividends of £145,500,000 Looking forward, we anticipate investing a net GBP250,000,000 in the balance sheet over the course of the next 12 months. And as a result, I'm expecting the net cash balance to reduce below £800,000,000 by the end of the current financial year, taking account of the proposed shareholder returns.
I will not go through each line on the balance sheet, which shows net assets increasing by £74,000,000 to £3,200,000,000 but I will run through the 2 big numbers, inventories and creditors, in the next two slides. This slide analyzes the GBP 98,000,000 increase in inventories in more detail. There are 2 important movements to look at on this slide. The first is the significant move of land not under development into production and the second is the £93,000,000 increase in BUILD work in progress. These both reflect the expected progress being made on our new regeneration sites.
Creditors have increased by £28,000,000 this year with all categories largely stable. Land creditors increased by a net £15,000,000 and now stand at £388,000,000 of which £57,000,000 is due in the next 12 months. Our group banking facilities remain 750,000,000 consisting of a drawn £300,000,000 term loan An undrawn £450,000,000 revolving credit facility. Through these facilities, the group has 70 of financing, up until November 2023. At the start of the year, £200,000,000 of the RCF was drawn and this was repaid in September.
That repayment shows through on the previous slide. The group has not applied for funding under any of the government COVID-nineteen lay schemes. At the year end, Barclays ungeared on a net basis with net cash of 1,100,000,000 and total available liquidity of 1,900,000,000 taking into account all of its bank facilities. In addition, the group's William joint venture has facilities of £360,000,000 of which £160,000,000 was drawn at the year end. This facility matures in March 2024 with an option to extend by a further year.
Finally, this slide summarizes our land holdings at 30th April, 2021. Estimated future gross margin has increased to GBP 6,900,000,000 compared to GBP 6,400,000,000 at the start of the year, with product numbers increasing to 63,270 from 58,413 during the year. Before accounting for homes taken to sales in the year, We've added just over 8,000 plots through adding 10 new sites and planning activity. 4 of the new sites are in St. William.
After accounting for the €751,000,000 of gross profit taken to sales, approximately €1,200,000,000 has been added. Around 2 thirds of this related to the new sites acquired and the remaining third to optimization and reappraisals.
Thank you very much. And I will now hand back to Ron. Thank you, Richard. I would now like to focus on the following 9 areas set out on the slide to explain Barclays performance and strategy in the context of the current operating environment. Firstly, turning to Barclays' unique model.
It is a land led, value added approach. This means we acquire land at the right time in the cycle where we believe we can add value over the long term through our place making expertise. We focus on complex large scale brownfield projects and take a bespoke approach to each site, focusing on delivering positive outcomes for all stakeholders ahead of annual profits. For our shareholders, we target sustainable risk adjusted returns. We have the experience, expertise and financial strength to unlock the value in these sites and we're the only homebuilder focused on regeneration of these brownfield sites at scale.
A small selection of Barclays long term sites are included on this slide and include former gas works, industrial estates, warehousing sites, disused military land and poorly designed post war housing estates in need of renewal. These sites all exhibit real complexity to unlock their value. They tend to be in built up areas. They often have multiple land end ships. They have a mix of sensitive neighbors.
They often require extensive demolition and land remediation. They also often require restoration of historic buildings. They all have complex ground conditions. Larger sites need new strategic infrastructure and enabling works. The planning and regulatory process is also far more complex, slow and uncertain for a brownfield site with a greater number of stakeholders and statutory consultees.
Therefore, Barclays can invest up to £200,000,000 in a major brownfield scheme before we deliver the first home. But if you can overcome these challenges, transforming a brownfield site provides benefits on many levels for multiple stakeholders. Reviving a site at scale lifts the local area and delivers a catalyst for a wider positive cycle renewal including new community amenities and infrastructure such as schools and parks. Barclays brownfield sites tend to be in built up areas with transport and social infrastructure networks, so they can sustainably support a significant number of additional homes. They add to the wider community's health and well-being instead of straining existing local services.
And conversely, if we leave these sites to decay, they can become a real blight on the communities around them, deterring new investment and contributing to an area's decline. In conclusion, bringing wasted brownfield sites back into community use is inherently sustainable and eases the pressure on the limited supply of land. This slide shows Kidbrook Village where we spent the last 10 years transforming a poorly designed and intimidating concrete landscape into a fantastic place to live. The scheme won the Sir David Attenborough Award for Enhancing Biodiversity and the overall President's Award at the recent Landscape Institute Awards. The next few slides demonstrate more examples of what a transformed brownfield site can look like at Barclays.
This is White City Living. We have delivered the 1st phase this year with another 2,000 homes still to be delivered over the next decade. One of the first Amazon cashless stores has just opened on the development. The scheme will also deliver 430 new trees handpicked by Barclays several years ago. At Southall's Green Quarter, the first private house went on sale this year, following on from the completion of the first phase, which provided 100 percent affordable housing for Ealing residents.
We are creating one of the finest examples of residential lead regeneration that puts biodiversity and nature at the forefront of our plans, including a 13 acre park for the use of our residents and the wider community. And finally, This is Grand Union Brent, where we are creating a vibrant new canalside neighborhood that will include well over 3,000 new homes. The first phase delivers much needed affordable homes acquired by Brent Council and a new community facility to be operated by the local community. Barclays is doing this at real scale, having added a site at Plumstead the 1750 homes in the second half of the year, we now have 29 brownfield regeneration projects. Each will deliver between 1,006,000 mixed tenure homes alongside new amenities and infrastructure.
The majority of these sites are in London. We have made great progress in advancing these sites over the last 5 years and now have 23 of them in production. These sites provide excellent visibility on the business plan for the next 10 years. The results today are strong and are enabled by our unique model, people and culture. 1st and foremost, we adapted to the challenges of the pandemic and sustained our production throughout.
Barclays prioritized the health, safety and well-being of all its people, its subcontractors and stakeholders. Combined with our financial strength, this meant that Barclays remained open and continued to trade safely throughout the year, which has resulted in the strong profit performance for this year, the ability to maintain the annual €280,000,000 shareholder return and the addition of 10 sites to our land holdings. Our financial strength also meant that we can make the right decisions at the start of the pandemic, not furloughing staff or requiring government loans. Underpinning our unique operating model is our long term business strategy called Our Vision 2,030, transforming tomorrow. This refreshed strategy builds upon the achievements of the last decade under the original Our Vision launched in 2010.
It sets out 10 strategic priorities. It is both ambitious and comprehensive, which challenges Barclays and its teams to transform key parts of our business and to get even better in the areas that really matter. The ultimate aim of our Vision 2,030 is to help us meet the key future challenges and opportunities, positioning Barclays as a world class business, which is trusted to transform the most challenging sites into exceptional places and to maximize our positive impact on society, the economy and the natural world. I am very proud that Barking has consistently led sustainability agenda within our industry and continues to take on commitments which were ahead of the legislative requirements. On the following slides, I set out 2 key areas which are fantastic examples of this, climate action and nature recovery.
Barclay was the first homebuilder to launch a climate change policy back in 2007. We unveiled our 1st calve reduction targets in 2010 as part of in the original Our Vision strategy. We have already successfully reduced the carbon impacts of our direct operations by 73% between 2016 2019. This year, we have set ambitious science based targets for reducing the full scope of greenhouse gas emissions connected to our business. This includes reducing our absolute direct emissions by a further 50% from 2019 levels and reducing the emissions intensity of our supply chain and from the use of our homes by 40% over the next decade.
This places Barclays on a course to be net 0 carbon business by 2,040. This track record and high level of future ambition means that Barclays is the only homebuilder on the CDBA list for climate action and transparency. Barclays has led the industry in reversing biodiversity loss, which is the other significant environmental challenge of our time. In 2016, we became the 1st U. K.
Homebuilder to commit to measurably increasing biodiversity on every new site we develop. Consequently, we are now weaving more beautiful natural landscapes into our sites, which is giving wildlife the conditions to thrive. One of the fantastic things about embracing this challenge is that local communities love it and it plays a key role in enhancing people's health and well-being. We've now applied our approach to more than 40 sites, which together will deliver over 480 acres of new or improved habitats, an area roughly the size of Hyde Park. Looking to the future, under our Vision 2,030, we plan to develop a more challenging approach that will deliver a net environmental gain on every project.
This means a measurable improvement in biodiversity, soil quality, water quality, air quality and flood resilience. I would now like to look at the sales performance and the market. Outside London, Barclays experienced good demand, aided by the government support for both the U. K. Economy and the housing market.
In London, transaction levels have been impacted by the pandemic. Firstly, Barclays has been selective in our approach to the market, deferring certain sales launches. We focused our sales efforts on our already established developments. And secondly, off plan sales have been impacted by the restrictions on travel. Overall, we are pleased with our resilient sales performance, which has seen the value of our private sales reservations at levels 20% lower than the previous year.
Our sales prices remain firm and above our business plan and with normal cancellation rates. If sales continue at this level, then Barclays will be on target to achieve its business plan over the next 2 years. Our cash due on forward sales is at £1,700,000,000 compared to 1.86 £1,000,000,000 a year ago and this also provides a strong underpin to our business plan over the next 2 years. The proportion of homes sold remains broadly fifty-fifty between owner occupiers and investors with overseas customers accounting for the majority of investors. We do recognize the impact of the pandemic, an important debate around the future of cities.
However, we believe London will continue to flourish and people will continue to want to work and live in London because of all the lifestyle benefits which only London can truly offer. Fundamentally, London is an unsurprised city and remains a fantastic and vibrant city. The debate around offices and working from home will continue to evolve. In recent weeks, it's been fantastic to see London's vibrancy starting to return. We are also delighted that inquiry levels in London are now ahead of pre pandemic levels, seeking return of competence in London as lockdown gradually eases.
This slide really does demonstrate that Barclays markets are undersupplied. According to the latest government assessment, London's housing need is 94,000 homes per year compared to an average delivery of 37,000 per year over the last 3 years. In the short term, the undersupply in London is set to worsen with new starts at around 15,000 homes per year. In terms of demand, this is underpinned by strong mortgage availability and low interest rates. Affordability levels remain within historical parameters for those with the requisite deposit.
Now looking at land and planning. Barclay continues to see opportunities to acquire new sites, but as always has been selective given the land market has remained reasonably buoyant, especially for oven ready sites with planning permissions. We have bought 10 new sites into the landholders in the year, comprising over 6,500 new homes. 4 of these sites were acquired unconditionally and the remaining 6 conditionally, of which 4 of the conditional sites are in our joint venture, St. William.
Looking forward, Barclays' focus will be on investing in its joint ventures and its owned land holdings to bring sites forward for delivery with further new land added selectively. If I now move to planning, we have secured 6 new planning consents in the year, totaling over 6,000 homes, which includes 4 major new consents on long term regeneration sites. And we have obtained over 40 revisions and amendments on other sites as we look to improve our planning consents. While we have had notable successes in boroughs who want to see new housing in the main, planning is taking even longer, is expensive and increasingly bureaucratic. During the year, the Planning reform bill was presented to Parliament.
With any change have a well intention, there is a risk that these changes will lead to delay as local authorities and other stakeholders transition between regimes. In particular, Barke has significant concern over the proposals for new consolidated infrastructure levy and the design codes. It is appropriate for smaller sites, but it runs a very real risk of impeding the delivery of large regeneration projects, which have unique challenges that require locally negotiated solutions with empowered local stakeholders and councils at the table. Barclays is in the investment phase as we bring forward our portfolio of regeneration sites to increase delivery by 50% from 20 eighteentwenty 19 to 20 fivetwenty six. We've made good progress in the year, moving 6 sites into production, including 5 regeneration sites, which together comprise around 10,000 future homes.
In respect to the current build costs, 2020 was a year of stable build costs, but these have increased to around 4% per annum since the start of 2021. Rising construction activity is driving demand at a time when supply chains are adjusting to the combined impact of the UK's exit from the EU and COVID-nineteen. Consequently, the current cost inflation is principally being driven by materials with labor costs largely unchanged. There's been a general tightening material availability with lead times increasing for certain products. Barclays working with our supply chain partners to manage the supply constraints and retain our production levels, which so far have not been impacted.
We currently have over 11,000 people working across our sites in production, more than prior to the pandemic. We are very mindful of the immigration changes coming into force and the effect this could have on label levels moving forward. Turning to our modular factory. We have made good progress in the development of our precision manufacturing facility in Ebsfleet during the year. We aim to begin production of the first prototype later in the year and our focus is on achieving a consistent, reliable and cost effective level of build quality whilst enhancing environmental performance, safety and productivity.
This slide shows the status of our 96 development sites, of which 46 are in London and 50 are in the Southeast and Birmingham. Of course, on a plot basis, it is evident that 74% of our land holdings are in London. We have completed 12 sites in the year and added 10 new sites. This leads to a reduction in the number of sites from 98 at the start of the financial year to 96. The sites in production have decreased by a net 6 to 64 with 6 started and 12 sites mentioned above completing.
Of the 16 owned sites not yet in construction, 10 have at least a resolution to grant planning permission, significantly reducing the balance sheet risk in our landholdings. Of the 16 conditional contracted sites, 7 now have at least a resolution to grant planning. The next two slides are the maps setting out the locations of all our sites. I will not dwell on these, safe to note, the 10 new sites added in the year are marked with an asterisk. Turning briefly to our joint ventures.
St. Edward is our joint venture with M and G and it currently comprises 5,139 homes in our land holdings across 6 developments. No new sites were added in the year. Five developments are in production. And shortly before the year end, St.
Edward secured a resolution grant on a site in Brentford for around 1900 homes. Sir William is our joint venture with National Grid, comprising some 13,000 homes across 19 developments. Sir William added 4 sites to its land holdings during the year. And Poplar Riverside was moved into production during the year, which means Sir William now has 4 of the group's regeneration schemes, all of which are now in production. These comprise Prince of Wales Drive in Battersea, Clarendon in Hornsey, Kingsrose Park in Fulham and Poplar Riverside.
Consistent with previous guidance, we anticipate Sir William to be materially in earnings enhancing by 'twenty three, 'twenty four. With the new land added in the year and the sites in its near term pipeline, Barclay has acquired or identified the land that will meet the 2025 target of having £7,500,000,000 of future gross margin in its land holdings. From this point, we will continue to acquire new land selectively. Reflecting this, the new land identified and the work in progress required to bring our regeneration sites into full production, we anticipate investing an additional GBP 700,000,000 in the balance sheet over the next 3 years. This combined with our strong net cash position provides the visibility to commit to returning the first £230,000,000 of the previously identified 4 55,000,000 pounds of surplus capital to shareholders.
This return is 6 months ahead of schedule. The remaining GBP 225,000,000 of surplus capital is anticipated to be spent on incremental land. We propose to combine the £230,000,000 return with the remaining shareholder return payments for 'twenty one, 'twenty two to deliver a €450,000,000 payment to shareholders this September. A resolution will be put to shareholders at the September AGM for this to be undertaken as a capital reduction. The next two scheduled distributions will therefore be in September 'twenty 2 March 'twenty 3, totaling £281,000,000 or approximately £2.50 per share after the capital reduction.
So lastly,
I conclude with a summary of our guidance, which is essentially unchanged. We continue to target a cumulative pretax return on equity of 15% for the 6 year period ending 30th April 2025. This broadly equates to £500,000,000 pretax profit per annum, a total of £3,000,000,000 For the next 2 financial years, we expect pretax profits to be at a similar level to the current year. I always like to remind you that Barclays will prioritize its financial strength ahead of annual profits where appropriate. Barclays is in investment phase, both on its owned and St.
William sites. The next 3 years, we'll see further investment in work in progress as more of our sites approach the point of delivery, coupled with further investment in identified and new land. This underpins our anticipated 50% increase in housing delivery by the end of the business plan period compared to the levels at the start when we delivered around 4,000 homes, including joint ventures in 20 eighteentwenty 19. As I've just mentioned, we're looking to selectively add to our land holdings and have identified land that grow the estimated future gross profit in land holdings to €7,500,000,000 ahead of the 2025 target. Thank you very much for the time today.
And this concludes the presentation of Barclays results the year ended 30th April 2021.