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Birmingham-based St. Modwen has moved back into the black with year-end pre-tax profits of £37.5m. The regeneration specialist had made losses before tax of £119.4m in the previous year. St. Modwen also revealed it had a “strong pipeline” of development opportunities over the coming months, and announced further proposals to its flagship Longbridge development.

In a statement to the London Stock Exchange (LSE) this morning, St. Modwen published its annual results to 30 November 2010. Property profits increased to £21.9m, up from £7.6m in 2009, while rent roll rose by 5 per cent, to £46m.

The company said that it had a “strong pipeline of development opportunities and schemes”, including a joint venture with housebuilder Persimmon to develop 2,000 homes over seven sites, and the £70m development of Longbridge town centre.

Anthony Glossop, chairman of St. Modwen, said: "As we look forward, our financial position is sound; our business model will increasingly create value; our valuations are prudent and our recurring income is robust. We are also in a good position to seize attractive opportunities to add further to the hopper, our regional teams continue to find opportunities to generate value and we are seeing a gradual recovery of liquidity in our key markets."

St. Modwen also announced that it had submitted further plans for its flagship Longbridge development. Along with Advantage West Midlands, the company submitted proposals to Birmingham City Council to develop the £70m Longbridge town centre - a mixed use element of the flagship regeneration project.

The application includes proposals for an 85,000 sq ft foodstore and 80,000 sq ft of additional retail space and restaurants. It also includes plans for a hotel and 40 apartments, together with the newly created two acre Austin Park.

The proposals also comprise car parking provision, arrangements for access roads into the new town centre and continued local road improvements.

In addition to the Longbridge development, the company said that it had also acquired two sites from UK Coal for £400,000. The first site comprises 60 acres at Pelsall in Walsall while the second consists of eight acres of land at Castle Gresley in Derbyshire.

Bill Oliver, chief executive of St. Modwen, said: "The submission of a planning application for the new town centre at Longbridge is a major milestone in the evolution of this project. It underlines our expertise in taking on large scale regeneration projects and provides a clear indication that 2011 will be one of the most active years yet for this important scheme.

"The acquisitions of two areas of land from UK Coal reflect our strategy of continually adding to our land bank to provide a long pipeline of profitable development projects to be managed and developed over the medium and longer term on behalf of our shareholders."