Swan Hill's growing housing division did not perform as well as hoped in 2001. But the commercial property division did slightly better than expected. This led the company to report £6.1m pre-tax profit, up from just £2.3m in 2000. However, its profit-and-loss account is littered with one-off costs which cloud the salient issues. As a better indicator of the health of the business, trading profit from continuing activities before one-off costs was £7.4m in the year to December, compared with £6.1m the previous year. This was generally consistent with expectations. But of crucial importance when evaluating the company is its net asset backing: 129p NAV at the end of 2001 compared with 125p at the end of last year. This puts the shares on a substantial discount to real value, especially when you consider that house-builders' assets are accounted at cost rather than value. Nevertheless, with the business bias switching from property to house-building, investors may like to see that side delivering better returns.