MAR is capitalising on the governments new schemes to build affordable housing, not a large player with a market cap of around £35m, but making a profit.dyor.

Possible breakout.

Mar City (AIM: MAR.L) the London and Midlands focused housebuilder is pleased to announce that it has acquired land, which will add a further 622 plots to its land bank.

The Company has signed contracts (the "Contracts") for an aggregate value of approximately £17.8m million, which will add 622 plots and a retail unit to its land bank, for the following sites:

· Cranford Street, Smethwick in the Midlands - 142 units of family housing.
· New Malden, London - 80 units consisting mainly of apartments and ground floor retail unit.
· Hall Green Road, Sandwell - 250 units of family housing.
· Darkhouse Lane, Dudley - 150 units of family housing.

The additional 622 units acquired will add to the 512 units acquired in December 2013, moving the current land bank to c. 1,100 units. With a strong balance sheet and cash and debt facilities, the Company is well positioned to secure additional sites in the coming year. There is a strong pipeline and the Company are seeking to acquire at least 2,000 plots this year, which would create a land bank of at least 3 years, by the end of the current year.

Final results for the year ended 31 December 2013

· Strong performance in 2013, with significant growth in revenue and profits.

o Revenue up 177% with work progressing on all 10 contracts previously announced.

o Underlying operating profits* increased to £3,555k, generating a return of 14.3% on turnover.

o Underlying PBT * increased by 251% to £3,432k.

o Reported PBT (after exceptional costs of acquisition) increased to £3,221k.

o Net assets increased from £1.3m to £65.7m, with strong net cash position of £17.0m.



· Transformational fund raise and land acquisition completed.

o The land acquisition of £30.8 million secured over 500 housing units across eight sites, with four sites already under development and now generating sales completions.

o The new equity funding secured in December increased cash balances by a net £27.8 million which will be used to acquire additional land in 2014.


Outlook for 2014

· Strong new sales pipeline, benefitting from the 'Help to Buy' scheme which is helping first time buyers, young professionals and families into home ownership.



· Additional equity funding increased cash balances by a net £27.8 million which will be used to acquire additional land during 2014 and a number of negotiations are already well advanced for sites in London, the South East and the Midlands.

o Following the fund raise Mar City has acquired 622 further plots across London and the Midlands, as announced today.
o Strong pipeline with a target of at least 2,000 plots this year, which would create a land bank of at least of 3 years, by the end of the current year.


· Significant levels of reservations already taken in 2014, with completions generating cash and revenues, giving confidence that the significant growth forecast for 2014 can be delivered.

http://www.moneyam.com/action/news/showArticle?id=4778452

152p. Lovely chart.

and went down to 129.50p yesterday

is on the bounce today now 131 - 134p +3p

Most builders are moving higher today, good update from TW.

on the move 2 MM on the higher bid 132p for 1 at offer 135p

The stock had a late rally to 134.50p +5p

Market Report

Housing, mining shares rise

Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey gave a bullish outlook on Tuesday with a "new and enhanced set of financial targets" as the housing market goes from strength to strength. The company also said it will return at least £200m of cash per year from 2016 on top of the £50m special dividend in July 2014 and £200m in July 2015.

Others in the sector were also given a boost by the comments, such as Barratt Developments, Persimmon and Crest Nicholson.

A couple of early buyers got the MM at offer move higher

such minuscule volume here, which must surely make the share prone to some ludicrous and unpredictable or even unwarranted swings

think i'll stick with TW and PAG :-)

Mar City (AIM: MAR.L), the London and Midlands housebuilder, is holding its Annual General Meeting ("AGM") today at 11.30am at the Four Seasons Hotel, Park Lane, London, W1J 7DR.

At the AGM Tony Ryan, the Chief Executive of Mar City PLC will make the following statement:

"We are delighted with the strong levels of activity that we are seeing in terms of both sales and reservations during the current year and we believe that the trading outlook for the year as a whole remains very positive, with increasing levels of activity across all sites currently under development.

Launch of Modular Construction Methods
I am also very pleased to report that Mar City launched its first modular development, featuring 102 apartments in the up and coming area of Colindale in London on 15th May 2014. This development, which is already 80% pre-sold, showcased Mar City's new, groundbreaking modern method of construction, which was enthusiastically received by everyone who attended.

This modular method of construction is the culmination of significant R&D within Mar City and allows the building of quality affordable homes for both the private and public sectors to be constructed in a factory environment. In turn this allows the homes to be built up to three times faster than a traditional housebuild, saving time and labour costs whilst producing a build quality at least equal to, if not better than traditional methods, with a high energy efficiency rating and lower environmental footprint.

This innovative new concept has taken Mar City almost a decade to develop and whilst modern construction methods have been used in other industries, modular systems have never before been viable in residential house building on a volume scale. This is believed to be a first for the UK market and our methods are already receiving critical acclaim.

The Company is currently scheduled for a number of additional sites to move into the development stage in the second half of the year utilising this ground breaking concept.

Land Acquisitions
Mar City has also concluded the acquisition of a further 112 plots across 4 sites in London and the Midlands for an aggregate value of £6.47m. We are continuing to comfortably attain our target intake margins on new land and as a result we will continue to build our land bank and are already well on the way to acquiring our target of at least 3,000 plots this year, which would create a land bank of 3 years by the end of the year.

Outlook
We are delighted with the progress already made this year and foresee further strong progress in the Company's trading performance in the second half as we benefit from the high levels of interest in Mar City's open market sales developments.

given the need for low-cost starter homes, i can see the argument for buying into this company

however
it is very illiquid (joke volumes) and MM only

i therefore wonder if the likes of BDEV are not a better bet


i think i am right in saying that panto comes from a different angle which relates to short-term share movement rather than what a specific company does

Trading Update
Mar City (AIM: MAR.L), the London and Midlands housebuilder, announces its trading update for the six month period ended 30 June 2014 ahead of its expected half year announcement in September 2014.

Current Trading
Mar City is delighted to report that it has made excellent progress in the first half of the year, successfully executing its strategy of delivering high quality new homes in its core geographies of the Midlands, London and the South East. During the period the Company has delivered further significant growth, with completions tracking comfortably in line with internal budgets and we have increasing confidence for the full year as we move into the second half.

One of Mar City's aspirations is to change the way that new homes are constructed and bring housebuilding into the 21st Century. Accordingly, Mar City launched its first groundbreaking modular construction development,'Green Point' in Collindale, North London in May. This 102 apartment site is on schedule for completion in September with 80 apartments already pre-sold with the remainder due for open market sale in due course.

The Company also commenced its second site using the modular technology for the construction of new houses at its Leamore development in the Midlands, which is already receiving strong levels of pre-market interest. As part of this development, the Company has successfully demonstrated the construction of two semi-detached houses from foundation level up, within 3 days, which has received widespread critical acclaim. The majority of new sites will now be moved into the development stage utilising this ground-breaking modular construction methodology during the second half of the year, which will allow Mar City to significantly increase its levels of production.

The Company has also benefited from the strength in the market for new affordable homes where it has seen very strong consumer demand for its new homes which has been supported by the availability of the Governments Help to Buy scheme, particularly evident across its new developments in the Midlands.

Land Acquisitions
Since reporting to shareholders at the Company's AGM in May, Mar City has acquired control of a further 472 plots across the Midlands, London and the South East in line with management's strategy to build a 3 to 5 year land bank, whilst maintaining target intake margins on new land purchases.

Mar City continues to view a range of opportunities and will continue to build its land bank during the second half of the year and expects to achieve its target of securing a total of 3,000 plots by the end of the year.

Outlook
With increasing levels of activity across all of the Mar City's sites currently under development and the momentum in consumer demand for new affordable homes, buoyed by the recent launch of Mar City's first development employing its new modular construction methods and the subsequent high level of enquiries which has followed, the Board is confident that Mar City will deliver further significant growth in its trading performance in the second half.

Commenting, Tony Ryan, Chief Executive of Mar City, said:
"We expect to achieve further strong progress in the trading performance in the second half, particularly as the Company benefits from the high levels of interest in Mar City's current programme of open market sales developments, which are translating into progressively higher levels of reservations and private sales completions and with increasing levels of sales to Housing Associations and Social Housing Providers, where the levels of interest remain buoyant.

We have been delighted with the response to the recent launch of our new modular technology. It is an innovation which we believe will continue to receive critical acclaim and we have been extremely pleased with the enthusiasm it has already received from within the industry and from our commercial partners, as they recognise how innovation can help improve the speed of production, overcome the issues of skills shortages and accelerate the rate at which quality new homes can be introduced into the UK housing market."

Big bounce from the 200 DMA, hopefully.

Mar City (AIM: MAR.L) the London and Midlands focused housebuilder today announces its interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2014.

Summary of results
· Further excellent progress made in first half of 2014.

· Revenue up 192% to £25.5m and underlying operating profit* increased by 212% to £3.4m.

· Ground-breaking new modular construction methodology launched in London and Midlands.

· Land bank increased to 1,656 units and new £40m debt facility signed on 31st July.

Commenting on the results and outlook, Tony Ryan, CEO of Mar City plc, said:
"Mar City made excellent progress in the first half of 2014, as we achieved further significant growth in turnover and profits, following the transformational equity raise and land acquisitions completed in December 2013.

The Group launched its ground-breaking new modular construction methodology on sites in London and the Midlands and has received widespread critical acclaim. One of the many benefits of this system is certainty on costs and insulation against traditional cost inflation, combined with an ability to significantly improve the speed of construction.

The Group has also started to benefit from the strength in the UK housing market, as the first open market sales completed using the Help to Buy scheme and have combined with strong social housing sales completions.

The Company's financial resources have also been further strengthened with the agreement of the new £40m Revolving Credit Facility announced on 31 July, and we are well positioned to continue to secure additional sites in the second half of the year. It is our intention to remain highly selective in all future land acquisitions, ensuring we are purchasing the right sites, in the right location, off market, at the right price.

We have acquired a further 1,215 plots across London and the Midlands in the first half, adding to the 512 plots secured in December 2013 and this should enable the significant growth forecast in the second half of 2014 to continue into 2015. We will continue to build our land bank this year and with newly emerging opportunities, the target is now to create a land bank of at least 5,000 units by the end of the current year.

Outlook
As originally forecast, the growth profile for 2014 carries a second half weighting, as all of the sites acquired in December 2013 were due to start generating sales in the second half of the year. Accordingly, having delivered in the first half, we remain confident that we can achieve full year market expectations.

We continue to position Mar City to take full advantage of a strong housing market and to deliver significant sustainable growth for the Company over the foreseeable future. We believe we are insulated against any geopolitical events, as we are at the affordable end of the market and we believe we can deliver strong returns to our shareholders".

Update on modular construction and management changes
Mar City (AIM: MAR.L) today provides an update on its new modular construction methodology and announces the following changes to its senior management:

Following the highly successful and widely acclaimed launch of modular apartments in London and modular houses in the Midlands, we are delighted to report that we now have the capability to build 1,000 modular homes from the next financial year onwards, on land owned by the PLC, which has full planning consent. We also expect to have acquired approaching 5,000 plots by the end of this year, giving a gross development value of £1billion.

It is widely accepted that in order to deal with the chronic shortage of housing in the UK, off-site construction, particularly using modular methodology is the answer to accelerating the amount of homes that can be built in the industry.

Mar City will be training non-skilled people to work with skilled trades and staff, as well introducing a programme for training apprentices to bring new blood into the industry. This also insulates the business against the current inflation in construction labour costs.

To help deliver our significant growth plans over the coming years, we are pleased to announce the following appointments:
Derrick Tyler has joined the Group to head up the new modular and construction programme as Managing Director. Derrick has extensive experience in modular construction, having previously been Managing Director at Caledonian Modular and will help drive further growth through this newly developed methodology.
Peter Martin has joined the Group in the newly created position of Group Development Director. Peter was previously Development Director for Sanctuary Housing Association and will look to deliver growth through developing large scale contracts with housing associations and local authorities.
Craig Murphy has been promoted to the position of Operations Director for Mar City Homes Ltd. Craig joined the business in June and was previously Commercial Director at Barratt and has extensive experience in the housebuilding sector.

We will also be appointing a new Group Finance Director over the next couple of months, who will replace our current Finance Director, Marcus Jones, who is leaving the Company on 31 December 2014 to take up a new appointment outside the house building sector. Wayne Inskip, Finance Director of Mar City Homes Ltd will assist in the interim, as required.
Commenting on the changes, Tony Ryan, CEO said "I am delighted to welcome Derrick and Peter to Mar City and look forward to working with them both and benefitting from their experience, which will help deliver the significant growth we have planned. I am especially excited about them assisting in the further development of our new modular construction methodology, which was launched earlier this year.
I would like to thank Marcus for his contribution over the past year, which has seen the successful transformation of the business into a substantial housebuilder and I wish him well for the future.
Together with Craig's promotion, these new appointments further strengthen the senior management team and will enable the business to continue to deliver its plans for growth.
The level of opportunities for our new method of modular construction is extremely positive and we expect to announce further contract awards for 2015 in the near future.
With the personnel additions announced and the modular capacity available to us, Mar City now has the capability to build upwards of c. 1,000 modular homes in the Midlands, London and the South East."

Mar City Homes Collects Housebuilding Awards
Mar City (AIM: MAR.L) is delighted to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary, Mar City Homes Limited has recently won a series of industry awards as follows:

The Society of British & International Design Awards
Mar City Homes' prestigious development in the Midlands, 'The Malt House', has been awarded the 'Best Residential Retrofit' project at The Society of British & International Design Awards. In this category entrants are judged on the success of a renovation and upgrading of an existing building. The shortlisted finalists in the 15 categories were drawn from over 30 countries across five continents.

West Midlands Property Awards
Mar City Homes development, 'The Malt House' also won the Regeneration Project of the Year at the recent West Midlands Property Awards hosted by Insider Media. The team not only found a new residential use for this former industrial building, but celebrated its manufacturing heritage in its design and detail. The development was highlighted as a great example in how to convert, conserve and create.

WhatHouse? Awards
The WhatHouse? Silver Award for Best Medium Housebuilder was presented to Mar City Homes for its industry leading modular technology producing sustainable and affordable homes in London and the Midlands, where in the last twelve months, Mar City Homes has commenced the introduction of its modular building methods across a number of new homes developments for open market sale and mixed use affordable developments.

Mar City Homes has also won the WhatHouse? Silver Award for Best Brownfield Development, for its Greenpoint development in Colindale, London, NW9. The £26m mixed-use scheme by Mar City Homes, using its modular construction methods achieving factory-controlled product quality and speed of construction allied with leading architectural design. The 102 apartment development includes affordable homes managed by Sanctuary Housing Association.

Commenting, Maggie Ryan, Operations Director of Mar City plc, said: "It is very gratifying for the entire team at Mar City to receive these awards in recognition of both the excellent standards of design we always aim to achieve as well as the modern methods of construction which we are now introducing across a number of our developments."

StockMarketWire.com
Mar City said its FY pretax profit will be in line with market views and more than three fold the previous year. It said 2014 was a transformational period with the highly successful launch of its modular technology.

CEO Tony Ryan said:
"The last year has been transformational for Mar City as we successfully launched our new modular technology. We now have a strong pipeline where we are in discussions with a number of potential joint venture partners and we are also developing plans to increase our home building capacity through the development of our own production facilities. We have a strong land bank with in the region of five years supply with planning permission.

"During 2015 we see a larger proportion of Mar City new homes built using our modular technology, and as demand increases we will match our production capabilities alongside that growth.

"We continue to see strong demand as a result of the Help to Buy initiative in each of our core markets in London/South East and the Midlands, where it is a particularly good match with the excellent quality and sustainability that Mar City new homes afford our customers.

"We look forward to achieving further growth in the current year as we continue to provide award winning new homes in London/South East and the Midlands."

Profit warning.

StockMarketWire.com
Mar City expects pre-tax profits for the year ended 31 December will be approximately £6.3m - substantially below market forecasts.

The company says the adjustment to the expected profit before tax result is due to a review of profit recognition associated with the following:

1. the holding value of completed residential properties, built by the company, in a private rental sector portfolio. These properties (a portfolio of 83 residential units) were to be retained by the company and therefore recognised and revalued as investment properties, with a total revaluation profit of £3.5m in the year to 31 December 2014.

The board has now decided that the benefit of retaining these units is not likely to be as significant as the benefit from selling the PRS portfolio for cash and has decided to market the units for sale.

As a result, the benefit to 31 December results from the revaluation as investment properties will not be received, and any profit from their sale will be recognised only on legal completion of sales in the future.

The board is confident that the majority of these units to be sold in the financial year to 31 December 2015.

2. The treatment of contractual income to be received by the company from forward sale agreements on two housing sites upon which it is currently contracted to develop. The review the board conducted has concluded that given the progress on each of these sites to date, the profit recognised on these contracts should be reduced to be in line with the build and delivery status of both sites, which had been inappropriately reflected in the profit guidance provided in the 28 January trading update.

The board expects the profit from these sites to be recognised during the financial year to 31 December 2015 and onwards. The company says the board of will be conducting a full assessment of the company's procedures regarding announcements and their verification which is currently being arranged.

The company said it announced in its interim results statement on 16 September, that the net debtor balance (excluding the unchanged GBB funding liability) owing from Mar City Developments Limited was £31.2m as at 30 June 2014, mainly comprising of balances owed in respect of the JCT contract for the development of the 103 apartment development site at Colindale, North London. The latest MCDL debt balance (following cash repayments of £10.0m expected to be received next week) is approximately £19.5m. This balance is expected to be reduced by way of set off by approximately £14.5m, being the consideration the group will pay, through the acquisition of property assets from MCDL. The consideration (and therefore the reduction in the MCDL debt) will be adjusted subject to current planning applications being applied for and liabilities attaching to the properties.

Independent valuations are currently being undertaken on the properties to be acquired to establish fair value. It has been further agreed, that any remaining MCDL debt balance (excluding the GBB funding liability), post completion of the proposed property acquisition, will be eliminated by 31 December 2015.

The proposed property acquisition is expected to comprise (a) two development sites, and (b) several Colindale assets including a number of residential units, the food retail space and the freehold interest which will all be acquired by Mar City for re-sale on the open market.

The Colindale site is expected to reach practical completion by June 2015, including the 79 units pre sold to Sanctuary Housing Association and a further 24 open market units.

Update on proposed property acquisitions
Mar City (AIM: MAR.L), the London and Midlands focused housebuilder, announces that, further to the announcement issued on 20 February 2015 work on the proposed property acquisitions is continuing and the Company expects that a circular regarding these acquisitions will be posted to shareholders in early April and in any event by no later than 20 April 2015.