Savills said it expected its results for the year to be at the upper end of expectations on the back of a quicker-than-expected pick-up in the UK regions.

In a trading update for the period from 1 July 2013 Savills said it was cautious about a weak Hong Kong market, but its prime UK residential and commercial businesses continued to trade well with increasing activity outside London.

In the UK, occupier markets in the City benefited from take-up in the insurance and TMT sectors and there had been a pick-up in leasing activity outside London across all sectors, said Savills.

The UK residential agency business has continued to trade well since June, with a resilient performance from the prime London markets, where secondary market transaction volumes have increased by over 12%.

Valuation, planning, development and housing consultancy divisions in the UK have all shown significant improvement as regional activity levels have accelerated somewhat faster than anticipated. Savills said this boded well for longer-term recovery in the regional market.

Cordea Savills assets under management have risen by around 17% to €4.8bn. Its open-ended funds continue to attract equity inflows and the business anticipates having substantial investment capacity going into 2014.