John Watson, chief executive of housebuilder Bellway, played down fears of a market meltdown as it posted a 6.4% rise in pre-tax profit to 拢234.8m for the year ending 31 July 2007.
Watson said: 鈥淭here has been a slight cooling since the Northern Rock crisis. Our sales were down 4% in the past 10 weeks, but I think confidence will rekindle.鈥�
He said his order book was contained work worth 拢667m, compared with 拢647m last year.
Bellway, capitalised at about 拢1.2bn, is often seen as a takeover target but Watson said he was interested in acquiring some smaller housebuilders.
Margins slipped to 0.6% to 18.7% and he expected further erosion next year of 0.2-0.8%.
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