255: London house price boom boosts Savills

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LONDON (Reuters) - Upmarket property adviser Savills said on Tuesday that profit for the year would be better than expected, helped by the recent boom in central London house prices.

"Prime residential markets, particularly in London, have performed extremely well throughout the year," Savills, which has offices in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia, said.

"We have seen a strong finish to the year resulting in the profit for the year ended 31 December 2006 expected to be nicely ahead of expectation," the company added.

Savills (SVS.L: Quote, Profile , Research) said that properties in the most sought-after areas of London had risen 24 percent on average while the office property market in Britain and Europe had also seen a recovery.

"The commercial investment business benefited from strong markets in both the UK and Europe with no signs of a slowdown in these investment markets despite concerns about rising interest rates and availability of stock."

Shares in the company, which have rise around 25 percent in the last year, closed at 657-1/2 pence on Monday, valuing the group at around 888 million pounds.

Savills is due to report preliminary results on March 14.

Source:

Reuters.co.uk