Berkeley Share Discussion Threads

[barnesian] 28/4/2015 15:04

Another chance to get the bottom??

[barnesian] 28/4/2015 13:48

As far as I can see, the Company issued 1,300,000 shares (incl 600,000 to Directors) on 15 April at an option price of £4.96.

Exercising those options will cost £6.45m, that is 258,000 shares at £25.

So far today, about 250,000 shares have been sold. I think we may have reached the bottom. I've just bought another 1,000. But DYOR.

[panorama] 28/4/2015 12:49

Looks like the directors are cashing in some of their new Incentive shares of the 15th April (2009 Plan). If they keep this up over the next few days who knows where the share will end up before sanity lifts it back up to a reasonable level. Nothing is reflected by their current performance.

[doe808] 28/4/2015 11:27

When is the next dividend?

[doe808] 28/4/2015 11:26

Good- looking to add lower.

[barnesian] 28/4/2015 11:05

I think it is an over-reaction to today's GDP figures for Q1. These show a 1.6% reduction in construction activity.

It is an over-reaction because the cautious long-term construction and financial strategy of BKG underpins a generous dividend yield. The Div yield is not in any way threatened by Q1 construction figures.

A buying opportunity I think.

[redips2] 28/4/2015 11:05

This volatility caused by the Greeks + maybe the uncertainty of a labour government hammering hi-value properties or........

[panorama] 28/4/2015 10:28

What's going on in the first two hours of trading today? Millions of Pounds value of sells & buys.

[deadly] 28/4/2015 09:57

3% drop today so far; looks like a chance to top up.

[rcturner2] 08/4/2015 13:22

Just noticed that the biggest shareholder here has £1bn worth of shares, yielding 7%, so a tidy £70m income a year from this stock lol.

[tudes100] 08/4/2015 09:57

£2m+ properties are a very small proportion of their business but the BKG SP, whether rightly or wrongly, seems very sensitive to anything impacting the tope end of the London market

[rcturner2] 08/4/2015 09:53

Average selling price is £650k, is this really non-dom territory? I can't see Berkeley selling much to non-doms.

[tudes100] 08/4/2015 09:46

Could be a tough few days if the Tories commit to stopping non-dom status as well as Labour. Prime London property market could come under a bit of pressure.

[rcturner2] 20/3/2015 13:10

Berkeley does what it says on the tin, they build houses, they make a profit, happy days for shareholders. Strong balance sheet a major plus.

[speedsgh] 20/3/2015 12:18

Sorry for OT...

DR_SMITH - I hark from Poole also. Lovely part of the world. Not currently resident there but do visit fairly regularly.

[speedsgh] 20/3/2015 12:16

R Ball - "hope not. buybacks only get to increase the eps which increases mgt bonus."

Yes, my concern exactly. You can see the temptation.

[barnesian] 20/3/2015 12:10

I think from memory that the BKG bonus scheme is on return to shareholders not eps so buybacks shouldn't affect their bonus.

Buybacks should increase the share price with a constant P/E ratio so in theory shareholders make a capital gain rather than an income gain. Not as certain though as a dividend.

[dr_smith] 20/3/2015 12:07

I'd take 'proportion' as being this years proportion of multiple year div, and not implying the div is a proportion of this years share based payments.

Re the concept of not over expanding, I see the budgets initatives via ISA's and help to buy as fuelling demand.

I see this as secondary to the primary issue which is a housing shortage.
I live in Poole and visiting an open day later for large scale plans to gain feedback for the entire district, with should we or shouldn't we use more green belt a key issue.

I'm not aware if these meetings/open days are across the country, but I do believe we need to build many more houses and without using up green belt but by use of brownfield sites and re-purposing closed/redundant non residential units (closed shops, decrepit offices) and generally use what we have already more effectively. This is where I believe the government need to focus by incentivising supply as a long term solution, rather than fuel the fire of demand, which can only be short term and escalate the imbalance.

...IMO ;-)

[r ball] 20/3/2015 11:43

hope not. buybacks only get to increase the eps which increases mgt bonus.

[speedsgh] 20/3/2015 11:17

From today's IMS...

"Berkeley reiterates its current intention to meet a PROPORTION of the next milestone of £4.33 per share by September 2018 through regular dividends..."

Does this mean that they may decide to return some of the £4.33 per share via share buybacks as opposed to via dividends? TIA

[philo124] 20/3/2015 09:35

Pasty- yes I agree on balance. In the Cotswold that was a shortage of Cotswold stone which held up building for 2 months. At this point of the cycle you would expect house builders to be robust as you say.

[pastybap] 20/3/2015 09:15

Phil, it's a long-term strategic decision. Housebuilders prefer not to become "too large" due to how extremely cyclical the market is. This means that in a downturn they are not at risk of overtrading with huge costs to downsize once again. To me it is a very astute decision and helps them keep long-term ROCE high and create wealth for us. If you really don't want your capital back then reinvest it. As an individual investor this makes more sense than the company expanding needlessly at lower ROCE.

[r ball] 20/3/2015 08:57

its not really a dividend. it s a capital return.

£13 I think over the reference period. Considering I paid £8 its not too bad.