Housebuilder Persimmon has reported a set of results significantly ahead of original expectations.

Having just completed the fourth year of a nine and a half year strategic plan, Persimmon made an underlying pre-tax profit up 34 per cent during the year to £637.8m on turnover up 13 per cent to £2.9 billion.

New home legal completion volumes increased by 8 per cent to 14,572 at an average selling price of £199,127. Over the last three years Persimmon has increased the volume of new home sales by almost 50 per cent.

Total forward sales at 22nd February 2016, including legal completions so far this year, increased to £1.68bn, 12 per cent stronger than at the same point last year.

The results will see Persimmon pay shareholders an increased dividend of £338m.

Chairman Nicholas Wrigley said: “Persimmon delivered an outstanding performance in 2015, supported by improving customer sentiment and a mortgage market which is responding to customer demand.

“It is now four years since we launched our long term strategy focused on growing Persimmon into a stronger, larger business while maintaining capital discipline and delivering robust free cash generation. The group’s ability to grow completion volumes by more than 55 per cent through this period while simultaneously returning £733m of excess capital to shareholders underlines the strength of its operating model.

“Customer activity in the early weeks of the 2016 spring season has been encouraging and today’s further £860m enhancement to the Capital Return Plan to a total of £9.00 per share is a measure of the board’s confidence in the group’s future progress.”