Wilson Bowden, the housebuilder at the centre of takeover speculation, today blamed a sluggish pre-Easter housing market on a 14 per cent fall in first-half pre-tax profits.

The results follow a report in The Times this week that HBOS, the bank that recently clinched a £1.1 billion deal to buy McCarthy & Stone, Britain’s biggest retirement home builder, is pondering a bid for Wilson.

Wilson did not provide any further information on any bid interest today, helping to send its shares 46p or 2 per cent lower, at 1,704p in morning deals. The shares had hit a record high of 1,759p this week on bid speculation.

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It emerged in July that NM Rothschild was reviewing the 33 per cent stake in the business held by David Wilson, 64, the chairman and founder.

A deal would depend on Mr Wilson agreeing to sell his stake and an approach would almost certainly spark a bidding war with rival housebuilders giants Persimmon and Barratt as well as private equity bidders.

Today, Wilson said pre-tax profit for the six months to end-June fell to £85.5 million from £99.6 million a year ago, in line with analyst expectations.

Revenue fell to £525.2 million from £554.9 million.

After a slow start to the year, Wilson suggested a surprise rate hike in August had made little impact on the property market’s summer pick-up.

"The outlook for the rest of the year remains positive ... We are anticipating no major change in market conditions with reservation and visitor levels currently running ahead of last year, but with keen pricing," it said in a statement.

"We continue to expect that the Group’s full-year performance will be in line with current market expectations."

Wilson is expected to report pre-tax profits of £219.8 million on revenues of £1.3 billion this year.

The company has proposed an interim dividend of 16.5p a share, a 10 per cent increase on last year.

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