Sheffield-based property investment and construction group Henry Boot plc said its 2022 revenue rose 48% to £341.4 million and profit before tax increased 29.7% to £45.6 million.

The firm delivered record underlying profit of £56.1 million, up from £29.3 million in 2021, “driven by residential land and property development sales.”

Total dividend will rise 10.1% to 6.66p.

Henry Boot CEO Tim Roberts said: “During what ended up being a turbulent year in which rising interest rates led to a rerating of the UK property market, Henry Boot delivered our best ever underlying profit and grew our NAV, which has allowed us to carry on increasing the dividend by 10%.

“The main driver of this performance has been strong sales activity across our three key markets of Industrial & Logistics, Urban Development and, most notably, Residential where we successfully sold a record number of plots of land.

“Management actions, through nearly £30m of well timed and accretive investment property sales, have led to a material outperformance of the investment portfolio against the CBRE index.

“Total property sales of £279m, combined with selective acquisitions, means gearing remains firmly at the bottom of our target range.

“Whilst we remain cautious about the near term trading climate, expecting 2023 to be a tougher year, our rock solid balance sheet offers resilience to both weather any further economic uncertainty and to take advantage of any opportunities that arise from it.

“With early encouraging indicators already evident across certain markets we have the capacity to buy land, maintain and potentially expand our committed development programme as well as to continue to grow our JV housebuilder as soon as we feel economic recovery is on the way.

“We therefore have confidence in our ability to achieve our medium-term growth and return targets.”

The firm’s shares rose about 4%.