Efficient Persimmon

Even more impressive was the increase in return on capital employed from 12 to 18 per cent. This was the reward for achieving a 16 per cent increase in legal completions to 11,528 and a much swifter turnaround in build times, itself assisted by a 27 per cent rise in sales from Space4, the group's closed-panel timber frame manufacturing business. Using a measure of pre-fabrication helps to reduce build times, and capital tied down by work in progress was equivalent to just 22 per cent of sales revenue.

Sales accelerated in the second half to finish up 30 per cent over the 2012 numbers, with nearly a fifth of completions during the year coming through the Help to Buy scheme. And there is every sign that the trend is gathering pace, with weekly private sales rates up 22 per cent in the first eight weeks of the new year. In fact, total forward sales for the coming year are up 41 per cent at £1.42bn, while cancellation rates remain historically low at 15 per cent.

To cater for the increase in output, a total of 17,735 plots of new land were added to the consented land bank, a third of which were converted from the strategic land bank. The group now has 74,407 consented plots, equivalent to six-and-a-half years of supply.

Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch are forecasting adjusted pre-tax profits for the coming year of £446m and EPS of 115p (from £330m and 80.3p in 2013).