Persimmon is our main Key Investment in the steadily growing house building business. Based in York it is the U.K's biggest builder with its top two brands, Charles Church and Persimmon, and it has just produced a great set of figures this week for 2014

             Sales increased by 23% to £2.6 bn.

             Pre Tax Profits grew by 44% to £475m.

             Earnings per share grew by 49% to125p per share

            Return on capital employed rose 40% to 24.6%

             Dividend increased from 70p to95p per share,some 35%

All told these results are superb and the initial figures for the current year suggest yet another record year for Persimmon in 2015,which remains one of the most attractive holdings in our Hotel /Leisure portfolio

The demand for homes continues to grow with an increasing population creating a demand for 240,000new houses annually,but currently only 140,000 homes are being built annually! Thus we see there is only a continuing long term demand which will keep all the five building groups in which we are invested busy for the next 20 years, if they are to catch up with the demand for 500,000 bedrooms annually