Persimmon says any writedown less than 100 mln pounds

Tue Jul 8, 2008 9:40am BST

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LONDON (Reuters) - House builder Persimmon Plc said on Tuesday any writedown of the value of its land holdings would be in the order of tens of millions of pounds, not hundreds of millions.

The biggest housebuilder by market value and No.3 by homes built also said it would take a charge of 10 million pounds to 12 million for a programme of 1,100 job cuts begun in May and nearly complete.

Housebuilders' share prices have collapsed, partly on fears of big writedowns on land holdings built up at the peak of the market.

Earlier, Persimmon said it sold 5,501 houses in the six months to end-June, down 31 percent year-on-year. The average selling price fell 4 percent to about 181,500 pounds.

(Reporting by Dan Lalor, Editing by Mark Potter)

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