Lennar Corp. Issues FY20 Guidance - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Lennar Corp. (LEN) said, for fiscal 2020, the company expects deliveries to be in the range of 54,000 - 55,000 homes, and homebuilding gross margin percentage to be in the range of 20.5% - 21.0%. With only $600 million of senior notes due in 2020, the company plans to opportunistically deploy excess cash flow to repurchase additional debt and return capital to shareholders.

For the fourth-quarter, deliveries were 16,420 homes - up 16% from a year ago. New orders were 13,089 homes, an increase of 23%. Homebuilding gross margin was 21.5%, in the fourth quarter.

Fourth-quarter earnings attributable to Lennar was $674.3 million, or $2.13 per diluted share, compared to $608.6 million, or $1.84 per diluted share year in the prior year (excluding the one-time gain from the sale of Rialto and non-recurring expenses).

Fourth-quarter revenues were $7.0 billion, up 8% from last year. Revenues from home sales increased 8% to $6.4 billion from $6.0 billion, prior year. Revenues were higher primarily due to a 16% increase in the number of home deliveries, excluding unconsolidated entities, partially offset by a 7% decrease in the average sales price of homes delivered.

Rick Beckwitt, CEO of Lennar, said, "During the fourth quarter, the basic underlying housing market fundamentals of low unemployment, higher wages and low inventory levels remained favorable. Our focus on making our homebuilding platform more efficient resulted in an SG&A percentage of 7.6%, an all-time, fourth quarter low. In addition, our financial services business performed extremely well with fourth quarter earnings of $81.2 million, an all-time, quarterly high."