Savills the latest agency to warn of Coronavirus threat to transactions

Savills is the latest agency to warn about the possible threat of Coronavirus to its business activities and success this year.

In its preliminary final results for 2019, issued this morning - and showing a strong performance for the international property group - the company says: “It is difficult accurately to predict the full impact of this issue on our business for 2020 as a whole. However, given the nature of the real estate market, we would anticipate that any near term slowdown caused by sentiment and specific measures taken to combat COVID-19 would generally result in a temporary delay in activity rather than an absolute loss of business.”

It continues: “In Asia, particularly China, it is clear that COVID-19 is having a significant impact on transactional activity and may have a similar effect elsewhere, depending to an extent on the length and severity of each outbreak. Our focus is on the welfare of our staff and clients and we have instituted protective measures in locations potentially affected by this virus.”

The trading figures for the company - which has a vast commercial and international infrastructure as well as its UK resi sales and consultancy activities - show a successful 2019.

Today’s statement says: “Our UK residential business continued to perform well in challenging conditions for much of the year which saw the UK market volume of transactions with values greater than £1m declining by two per cent year-on-year. “Against this backdrop and buoyed by the clear General Election result in December, Savills UK Residential business performed well, growing revenue by six per cent year-on-year.”

The company also says it successfully acquired and integrated London agency Currells.