Q & A with Toll Brothers’ Robert Toll

Other builders are teetering on the brink of financial collapse, but not Bob Toll. Although last year Toll Brothers reported its first quarterly loss in 85 consecutive quarters, the company still produced fiscal 2007 revenues of $4.6 billion and net income of $35.7 million. Making a profit today is no easy task. The builder trimmed its land position by 35 percent over the past 20 months and offers discounts only on spec homes. When asked what he would have done differently with the benefit of hindsight to counteract the downturn, Toll said he may not have been as aggressive. “But if we had acted differently, we probably would have acted differently in ’93, ’95, ’98, and ’01 through ’03, and would have missed all the tremendous expansion and profits that we were able to produce the past five and more years.”