NCC’s housing sales increased in April

NCC’s sales of housing increased during April compared with a year earlier. A total of 440 (246) units were sold. This was announced on NCC’s Capital Market Day on Thursday. However, market conditions in the Nordic construction market remained weak. Orders received by NCC declined in April by 38 percent compared with April 2008.

Thursday’s Capital Market Day with NCC focused on the newly formed business area, NCC Housing, and the aggregates, asphalt and paving operations conducted in the NCC Roads business area. The recent years’ investments in the housing market resulted in NCC becoming one of the largest housing builders in the Nordic region. The number of development rights totaled 31,537 at April 30th and the ongoing production totaled 3,641. The sales increase during April was primarily attributable to Sweden, where NCC has had a campaign in progress since March under the theme “A room on the house.” The increase in sales has meant that the number of completed unsold homes fell from 780 to 730 during April. Furthermore, NCC has during 2009 sold a number of land areas with corresponding contracts, totaling SEK 683 million, to investors. - We will continue to adopt a cautious approach to starting housing projects, due to a pessimistic view on the housing market for the second half of 2009. During the first four months we started 159 (588) housing units. Due to low interest rates and a successful campaign in Sweden, sales nearly doubled in April, but increased unemployment will impact sales. A campaign similar to the one in Sweden was launched in Finland in early May. It is too early to summarize the results but the campaign attracted widespread media coverage and sales have been affected, comments Peter Wågström, President of NCC Housing. NCC’s President and CEO Olle Ehrlén repeated the market prospects that were published in the most recent quarterly report on May 12. - The trend of reduced orders received that we had seen in the past two quarters also continued in April. We will continue to adapt the organization, operations and costs to market conditions and to the lower volumes. However, we have a strong market position with a broad product portfolio, extensive geographic spread and an excellent financial position, comments Olle Ehrlén. Speaker presentations are available on http://www.ncc.se/en/About-NCC/Investor-relations/Capital-Market-Day/