Housebuilder Persimmon raised new home completions last year by 4% as it delivered pre-tax profits up nearly a quarter to £775 million.

Announcing 2016 annual results today, the firm revealed that revenues reached £3,136.8m for 2016 (2015: £2,901.7m) and profit before tax was £774.8m (2015: £629.5m).

The company delivered 15,171 newly built homes to customers across the UK, an increase of 599 on 2015, and the average selling price of £206,765 was 3.8% higher (2015: £199,127).

Persimmon also revealed plans to shovel more cash back to shareholders through its capital return plan to 2021, increasing payments by 49% to £9.25 a share.

The company is now half-way through a 10-year plan and in that time, since 2012, it has grown annual completions by more than 60%.

Chairman Nicholas Wrigley said that the company was performing well and the UK new build housing market “remains confident with customer demand for new homes supported by compelling mortgage products”.

Persimmon’s new brickworks near Doncaster is also set to come on stream before the end of March. The factory will supply concrete bricks exclusively to Persimmon’s house-building operations. Its capacity of 80 million brocks a year will be enough to satisfy approximately two thirds of Persimmon’s current requirements and the £10m investment will pay for itself in just three years.

Mr Wrigley said: “Persimmon continued to perform strongly in 2016, meeting market demand with increased output and delivering disciplined high quality growth.

“The Group has now completed the first five years of its long term strategy which remains focused on growing Persimmon into a stronger, larger business while maintaining capital discipline and robust free cash generation. The strength of the Group’s operating model is demonstrated by our ability to grow completion volumes by more than 60% and investing c. £2.6bn of cash in land through this period while simultaneously returning over £1.0bn of excess capital to shareholders.

“Customer activity in the early weeks of the 2017 spring season has been encouraging. The further increase in the Capital Return Plan demonstrates the Board’s confidence in the Group’s prospects.”