Member Info for strictlybricks

"It’s all a large gamble, hopefully the competition competition will give the deal a good kicking

and not allow it, why would they allow it, what’s the benefit to the public, there isn’t one. "

.............................

Finlay,

I for one hope you are correct in this…?

The Game of Strictly Bricks ~ from which I take my moniker here ~ is currently played in its purest form between just two companies, which are Bellway and Redrow….

Take away Redrow and, until an alternative manifests, Bellway has morphed into Billy No-Mates…! ☹

And the boards of both companies seem confident the deal will happen…

In its defence, Barratt has been a much better, and more soundly financed, company in recent times than it was during the era of Mark Clare, though its financial performance is still below that of Redrow over the past fifteen years or so…

The two stars of the sector over forty years are Bellway and Persimmon ~ though Persimmon have spaffed more book value via big dividends….

Which is why, in our investing circle, Bellway has the affectionate nickname of “Ghost Dog”

But you’d probably have had to have seen the film to understand that…?

Anyway, I thought you made some good & interesting points…

And I guess we have to wait and see how this all pans out ~ though I’m doing so from the position of being fully invested (in Bellway, currently, that is) rather than looking in at the house building sector from the outside with a bucketful of popcorn by my side…

Strictly

If you look at the estimated book value per share for Barratt & Redrow as it is now, but allowing for what I’ve calculated to be around a 2% fall in book value for Barratt share holders and a 4% increase for Redrow shareholders when the deal goes through ~ or 5% if you include the Redrow div to be paid be paid before the takeover/merger, by my reckoning I get 447.1p for Barratt and 648.8p for Redrow as of this month.

Bring in share prices ~ currently 475.5p for Barratt and 667p for Redrow ~ and this gives respective PBVs of 1.064 for Barratt and 1.028 for Redrow.

This means there’s only about 3.5% between them ~ whereas a fortnight ago it would have been a full fat 15% gap between them on the same respective share prices.

The managements of both companies seem very confident that the deal will go through…

If it does, then, providing I haven’t had a senior moment with the numbers (always possible ~ I do have one or two of these from time to time), surely there isn’t much further to go now for more price movement to equalise between the two and maybe the residual bit still outstanding is a reflection that it’s not over until the fat lady sings, so to speak.

A separate point is that, although Barratt have for along time been synonymous with “little boxes” the reality has well moved on ~ they have the longest running uninterrupted period among the big house builders for a five stars customer rating from the House Builders Federation.

Their most recent five year average ROE is good at 13.0%, albeit a bit behind Redrow’s at 13.8%.

Against that, they are a FTSE100 company which probably gives them some sort of bonus to the share price against their FTSE250 country cousin, Redrow.

So anyway, folks, I’m just sharing a few crumbs for thought… make of them what you will….? 😊

Strictly

Krusty,

You may well have a valid point there re Steve Morgan ~ one which, to be frank, hadn't occured to me....

So thanks for sharing that thought...! :-)

Strictly

MM,

PS

In the midst of my rather long previous comment, I omitted to make the obvious point that the main element of the difference between the PBV figures you and I each have is that Barratt has a shedload of intangibles that I never include in any BVPS calculation, but I can see from your figures that you have...

The balance sheet equity for Barratt as at 31/12/23 of £5,439.6m includes £1,042.6m of intangibles, and this obviously makes a big difference.

Secondarily, you have use the accounting period figures, i.e. as at 31st December, whereas I have used estimated updated numbers as for February.

Strictly

MM,

I approach this by taking net tangible equity from the most recent balance sheet, and dividing by the number of shares in issue at that date to obtain tangible book value per share.

So, for both Barratt & Redrow, that's as at 31/12/23.

From there, I adjust each month for the estimated earnings pro rata since the last balance sheet while taking into account any ex-div dates reached and adjusting for the dividend amounts.

I've been making these calculations, and tracking them on a spreadsheet, for a good number of years now, and experience suggests, based on updating once a later set of figures is released for the next half year, that I'm generally within plus or minus 2% of the actual result...

And while I trade on thin margins between different house builders as and when a perceived value gap opens up ~ as they always have done from time to time ~ I don’t look to trade on one as low as 2% so the margin of error on the estimated book values is mostly tolerable….

And, in any event, it’s my reasonable best shot at coming up with numbers that are up to date and therefore useful for trading upon…

At the end of the day, I certainly don’t always call it correctly, but it’s a matter of aiming to get it right more often than getting it wrong, while also being prepared to take modest perceived value opportunities rather than waiting for the big gaps that usually don’t come and missing out ~ as the market has seemed to have become at least a bit more rational in recent years…

More’s the pity, but such is life…

It is a disappointment, to say the least, that one of the most important players of the sector, from an investor’s point of view, has just been taken out of the game by Barratt, who have acquired it by giving away just a few crumbs ~ so, at the least, chapeau to them given how badly by stark contrast they screwed up sixteen years ago with Wilson Bowden.

By “mere crumbs” I mean they gave away just 2% of shareholder value (by my calculation) so the Redrow share holders received about 4%, being only half the size of Barratt..

However, there’s nowt we humble private investors can do about that bar sucking it up…!

I might have made a nice round trip game last week by moving from being entirely invested in Redrow to now being entirely invested in Bellway, but that was just a one-off, of course, and I’d much prefer that Redrow were still around….

So, last hope on this ~ I’m doing a little mental rain dance that the government kyboshes the deal….

Strictly

IRP,

Firstly, re Persimmon, if you click on my name here and scroll through my past comments, then, depending on how far back you can be ars.d to read (I'm far from being succinct, and I do tend to ramble a fair bit so there's a lot to get through….) you'll find plenty on Persimmon, and my "Syd Barrett" moment in respect of buying their shares.

And Vistry, aka Battersea, may or may not have a bright & rosy future, but they certainly don’t have a bright & rosy past….!

So, for me, that’s a bit like Warren Buffett’s baseball analogy of waiting for ages, if it comes to it, for the perfect ball to strike at because, in investing, unlike baseball, you don’t have just three options then you’re out.

And so, being the wussy investor that I am, why would I take the risk that Greg at Battersea has, indeed, turned water into wine (and my somewhat jaundiced view is that he probably ain’t ~ but no doubt time will tell in due course and I have no skin in that particular game anyway so why would I be bovvered either way…?) when I’ve had the opportunity instead to swerve between Bellway & Redrow from time to time to hoover up the gaps that open up between them continually in perceived best value ~ albeit mostly small ones of just a few percent ….?

Of course, Redrow has most probably now abandoned us, and I’ve yet to decide how to replace them in the game, but I’ve had a great start to the year, selling Bellway for Redrow in January and reversing all that back this week, so that was a lot of work for a nice reward and I’m happy to pause & reflect for a while on what the next step might be and, meanwhile, see what Mr Market brings to the table…?

If you go on FT.com for either of these companies and make a graph for the two of them together over different time scales, you can see that, like Lindisfarne, they do largely swing together ~ but not completely so, and it is in those spaces that extra gains are there to be made without any requirement to call the market like most of the folk commenting in these LSE share chats seem to want, or even believe they are able, to do…

To my mind, that is folly, and my records show that I have overall been able to beat Bellway’s performance (that’s my benchmark share) by around 6% a year on average doing this providing I’m not being distracted by buying into something else like Persimmon or Crest that have been wrong moves because they ain’t like Lindisfarne when it comes to price movement alongside Bellway.

You do have to be confident that you can call best value, though, and obviously you do have to be right more often than you are wrong..!

It’s about winning the lottery in slow motion, in my view, and people either get that or they don’t…?

Strictly

MM,

With regards to book values per share, I calculate these monthly while also taking into account ex-div dates and amounts....

Up to Wednesday this week, I didn't use to bother doing this for Barratt, only for Bellway, Redrow and Crest...

However, Crest have recently dropped out of the zone for me as their low PBV has been increasingly trumped by their managerial ineptitude, and Redrow are, sadly, most likely to have been taken out of the frame by the end of this year unless the managements of Barratt & Redrow were getting ahead of themselves in their excitement at the recent scribblers' love in...

So, as from now, Barratt are almost in the frame ~ especially as their price has taken a bump with resulting lower PBV ~ so I've started monthly figures for them too.

Who knows ~ I might even start doing the same for Taylor Wimps..?

Anyway, by my calculation, this takeover/merger takes about 2% of book value off Barratt share holders and gives about 4% to Redrow shareholders...

So Barratt have had it away here, IMO, and I'm surprised Steve Morgan has allegedly given it his blessing but, there you go ~ what do I know...?

Anyway, as of about ten minutes ago, my PBV figures for Barratt, Bellway and Redrow respectively are:

Barratt 1.08

Bellway 0.98

Redrow 1.04

These figures assume the deal has gone through ~ otherwise Barratt would show slightly more cheaper and Redrow slightly more expensive...

So, until & unless either I have a different thought or Mr Market does something to push me to make a move, I guess for moment I'm happily ensconced in Bellway....?

For me, when it comes to house builders, holding Bellway shares is the nearest it gets to having a comfort blanket... :-)

And their trading update today was pretty inoffensive too, I thought...

Strictly

Krusty,

I obviously don't know whether you went online and listened to Barratt & Redrow's joint scribblers' love-in yesterday, but all parties on both sides seemed genuinely very enthusiastic about how good this merger would be for all stakeholders concerned, and very upbeat & positive about the likelihood of it passing muster with the man....

Barratt are, IMO, a good business ~ right up there close behind Bellway & Redrow, just a tad too expensive, relatively, still...

I have increased their book value weighting from zero to 5% in lieu of a) Redrow hopefully helping to take them up a level and b) the mooted synergies & cost savings to be had as things progress…

There’s also that, IMO, they really did nick this company off of the Redrow shareholders…

By contrast to seventeen years ago, when they nearly disappeared down the toilet by borrowing £1.7 billion to buy Wilson Bowden just before the credit crunch hit ~ a bit like renting a row boat above Niagara then heading off downstream without a care in the world ~ this time round, they only forsook a couple of percent of book value on behalf of their shareholders rather than wiping out the great majority of the asset value, from which they STILL haven’t recovered.

And they have a strong balance sheet with total liabilities at 49% of net tangible equity.

So, all in all, I would say that the market has hit the share price rather hard, and this plus the improved weighting I’ve now allocated to them means they currently are within about 5% of the trading zone against Bellway for me ~ which is where all my invested capital is as of yesterday…

So, I’m willing that relative price shift, Barratt against Redrow, to continue to move about another 10% in my favour and, voila, Barratt might have replaced Redrow…?

Now there’s a happy thought…!

With regards to yesterday, from metaphorically choking on my cornflakes just after 7am when I saw the announcement, I was full on at it all day trading my entire portfolio across from Redrow to Bellway and generally communicating with my investing crew ~ apart from taking a break for a lunchtime nosebag down on the seafront here in Spain where I’m due to be resting my bones for a few more weeks yet ~ until gone 1am in the morning when I finally finished listening the scribblers’ get-together on the webcast or whatever they call it.

But yesterday was, by some margin, the most productive day I’ve ever had trading shares in the nearly twenty four years I’ve been at this…

Strictly

"I was wondering your thoughts on the Vistry model..."

.......................

Ian,

I suspect you won't think much of my view on Vistry…?

It’s rather pejorative nickname within our investing circle is Battersea ~ as in the Dogs’ Home…

Reason being is that am a rear view mirror investor, and have been so for the nearly twenty four years that I’ve been involved in, and earning my crust from, this investing malarkey, with just over the past twenty years of which being just in house builder shares ~ hence the moniker…

It may well be that Greg Fitzgerald has been able to turn water into wine, but I want to see it manifest first, and over a few years of consistent performance ~ talk is cheap, and all that…

Whereas, Bellway is my benchmark share…

Yesterday at close of play, I was 100% invested just in Redrow.

Now, having just had my busiest day ever in investing, my head is starting to spin with having had to remain mindful for hours not to press a buy button instead of a sell, or vice versa (I’ve made that mistake once or twice in the past and, on a big trade, it’s expensive..!), I’m now 100% in Bellway ~ which also happens to be my benchmark share.

To compare Vistry with Bellway, their past ten years’ ROE has averaged a measly 7.9% compared with Bellway’s 16.7%.

If you take the most recent five years of those, times have been tougher ~ Bellway’s average ROE is down to 11.8%.

But Vistry’s has almost evaporated, at just 3.7%.

Now, I’m not suggesting that Greg ain’t in fact, managed to somehow discover the hidden elixir of achieving high profits in difficult times, but I’m far too much of a wussy investor to want to risk it ~ especially when you have to pay just over 1.6 x book for this, IMO, questionable confection compared to just under 1.0 x book for Bellway.

I have discussed this before here, and I have seemed to have rattled a few cages about it if I venture onto the Vistry share chat about it…

But, whatever the future may hold, Bellway has a 40 year track record of overall stellar performance, whereas Vistry’s 25 year performance is pants…

But, the bottom line is, I have no idea, and no opinion, on whether or not Greg’s brave new world will happen…?

So, I guess that was about as much use to you as an ashtray on a motorbike ~ but I’m only give you my sincere three halfpence-worth of how I regard Vistry...? :-)

Strictly

Do you have any thoughts on today's developments strictlybricks? Always value your insights. K

............................

Krusty,

This morning's news has given me a VERY busy day today so far, but the short story is that, as of last night, I was 100% in Redrow ~ by which I mean that was my only holding for my entire portfolio as I only invest in house builder shares ~ and now that's nearly all gone back into Bellway...

It might seem a good day to most here, but for me it's a sad day...

After all, if this takeover goes through, as seems likely, then this has taken one of the most important two players out of the game....

And that defo ain't good news for me and my crew on the blog...

But, ho hum, such is life ~ there's nothing we can do about it bar suck it up....

Strictly

RM

The SB Blog...

In case you didn't seen my email yesterday, I wrote to you to advise that I'd accidentally signed you up on the blog at the wrong level ~ and I couldn't undo it retrospectively so instead I cancelled that access and have sent you a new blog invite which you’ve hopefully received..?

As said in my email, I appreciated you challenging me there ~ I reckon I don't get enough of that TBH ~ so hopefully will hear from you again there...?

Given the nature of our discussion, I'm imagining you're following the overall movement of share prices for the house building sector pretty closely right now ~ and particularly with regards to Redrow's share price....? :-)

If you’ve got to read much of the blog, you’ll no doubt understand that wherever Redrow’s share price goes of itself from here is very much a secondary consideration for me…

What is of primary importance is where it goes against Bellway’s price…

And, just two days in admittedly, I ain’t complaining thus far…!

I’m also pleased to have moved completely out of Crest ~ especially having now downgraded its book value weighting against that of Bellway’s to minus 40%

Strictly

RM,

I also sold my remaining Crest shares to buy Redrow about a week ago...

As things stand, that's proved to have been the right move....

The reason being that though the market may look through the gloom to onward and upward, there's also that if I'm anywhere near right about the 4.5p reality check EPS for tomorrow, this is quite a stark difference to the figures the scribblers are talking...

Of course, they too do seem to love that little word to conjure with ~ "adjusted".

So, any big difference tomorrow may come as a market upset ~ along with likely the reduction or even cancelling of the dividend...?

So, whether it's a case of great minds think alike, or small ones seldom differ, we seem to be in agreement.

Which surely means that tomorrow's Crest numbers announcement is now a popcorn moment, rather than potentially requiring incontinence underpants...? :-)

Of course, part of the function of the market is to make fools of us all when it can....

Strictly

Londoner,

As you know, I only invest in house builders so have to consider possible/likely future investment returns based on these...?

My spreadsheet for this takes on board what the scribblers are saying for the next three years and then I've inferred forward at a rate of progress thereafter such as to provide for an average return on equity of around 10% a year overall over the next decade or so (I don't want to think beyond that as, by then, I'd be into my eighties..!).

Anyway, this is significantly lower than Bellway's forty year track record of around 16% ROE so, of itself, implies that I’m allowing that times may be thinner from here on...?

And that's before trading between house builder shares which, since I've been keeping more accurate records from 2013, has given me an extra 6% or so a year on top ignoring partially swerving the covid tsunami in 2020.

Those opportunities have become thinner of late as, regardless of the endless speculation of what the market may do tomorrow, next week, next year, whatever, the situation is that it has become surprisingly more rational when it comes to valuing the better house builders against each other (and I'm not including Vistry in that) ~ and it's the degree of that perceived irrationality that provides for inter-housebuilder trading opportunities.

This is somewhat more important to me and my investing circle than the illusory comfort blanket of share prices being high.

So, the upshot is that, insofar as my projections go, hopefully I'm being cautious ~ and, of course, this doesn't take into account any huge global googlies that may or may not thrown into the world's economic arena by Xi, Vlad, Benjamin or Joe ~ all very nice chaps whom I'm sure we'd all be delighted to spend an evening down the pub with...

So, the short story is that I guess I'm agreeing with you that it may be different this time ~ while still acknowledging that those are reckoned to be the most dangerous words in investing...

Strictly

Ps Strictly,

"Good to see the stats show back and encouraging figures for the start to the year?"

...............................

Crossley,

Yes, I had noticed that ~ I think I'll put out an APB about it on the blog and, for anyone interested, here's a link below....

I watched the first twenty minutes or so ~ that's about as far as I usually get, it ain't exactly like watching "The Big Short" ~ and it was good to see pretty much the same message....

Which essentially was:

"Nothing to see here, move along"

Thus far, keeping tabs on this is like having a pint with Captain Hindsight and, in the several months I've been aware of it and watching it, it's been almost amusing to see the consternation of the doom mongers as the figures unfold months later from the likes on the Nationwide...

And long may it continue ~ not that we can take anything fron here for granted, mind....

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8EVjavxiDxhquawPNmGzicGQ0Wr5BTtK

Strictly

Crossley,

Just as an update in case you didn't see it on the blog, since Crest's unscheduled profit warning I took advantage of a brief bounce on their share price to move my remaining holding of Crest into Redrow.

If all the listed additional items in the update are due to come off the revised "adjusted" net profit before tax figure of £41m then, by my calculation, that boils down to a reality check EPS of around just 4.5p.

Of course, I may have that wrong and have over-reserved for the grief, but I'm looking to be on the right side of things...

Given, as discussed elsewhere, that Crest might be cheap but they're also flaky, and bearing in mind that a few updates back they twiced bigged up this mooted final dividend of 11.5p but that the two most recent updates including the profit warning, funnily enough, made no mention of it, I'm not holding my breath on the notion that the prospective dividend will happen...

At least, not the full 11.5p.

And, especially if there's no dividend, I'm wondering what Mr Market might make of that..?

We should only have to wait until next Tuesday to find out, but I'm now watching from the sidelines and I did make a decent gain on selling the Crest shares ~ though I didn't do as well as I would have done if I'd not sold Bellway to buy Crest in the first place...!

But, such is life...

I'm now pushing three quarters in Redrow and the balance in Bellway, and that's it.

Strictly

RM,

Well, if you look at a ten year match for the past decade then, to borrow the old cliché, it’s been very much a game of two halves…

For the past five years, now including my estimate of 4.5p EPS for 2023, Crest’s average ROE was only 3.0%.

Bl..dy hell, even Battersea, aka Vistry, beat that ~ they were on 3.7%.

However, for the five years prior to that, Crest were second best in show, only behind Persimmon, on an average ROE of 23.4%.

Persimmon were on 26.5%, and Bellway were on 21.7%.

So, I guess that we (and I’m saying “we” in case you are still holding Crest shares?) have to take a view that Crest are hopefully likely to recover at least some of their former glory, and that maybe this year is partly about kitchen-sinking the balance sheet and so, in the absence of further problems, no more Vicky Pollarding next year…?

And at a price to book of currently 0.62, we ain’t exactly paying top dollar to hold their shares, are we…?

I mean, I would say that there’s a fair bit of grief already priced into that…?

And I appreciate that I ruffled a few Battersea aficionados’ feathers recently in expressing some doubts about Vistry on the VTY share chat, but it’s worth bearing in mind that, on a PBV metric, Vistry is around two and a half times more expensive than Crest…

Persimmon had been in that territory while under the influence of King Jeff, and I correctly anticipated a greater relative fall in their share price once the smelly stuff was hitting the twirly thing in recent times…

Sadly, however, as you’ll probably know from the blog, just like Syd Barrett, I reached for the secret too soon ~ I mean, I bought in too early.

Hence my poor showing for the year in SWR 2023.

But such is life in this game…

Strictly

RM et al,

I've just done a quick assessment of Crest 2023 earnings based on the information that is now out there and have marked Crest down to a forecast EPS of 4.5p for the year ~ which hopefully puts me on the right side of things…?

As follows:

£41m “adjusted” profit before tax

Less £11.5m previously notified and £13m notified this morning of one-off costs = forecast net profit before tax of £16.5m

Less Corporation Tax of 25% along with our pal Michael Gove's extra 4% on house builders = 29% = £4.8m tax = net profit after tax of £11.7m.

Divided by 251m shares in issue = 4.5p EPS.

I've just put this out on the blog to invite senior moment spotters to pick me up on any errors, and am doing the same here for any number-crunching, accountancy-minded readers who may be minded to do so here...?

With the negative book value weighting of minus 30% that I have in for Crest against Bellway, and with today's price drop, they still represent best perceived value in my view ~ though I currently have a self-imposed limit of their being not more than 20% of my total holdings.

I'd welcome you or anyone else coming back on this to confirm or correct my numbers...

Strictly

“I think the point I was trying to make is that looking at the revenue and profit doubling over the last 3-4 years…”

……………….

Well, Vistry have been on a spending spree over the past year or two so, yes, their revenue has more than doubled…

But I’m old fashioned enough to consider that it’s the bottom line that matters to shareholders, not the top line, as it’s easy enough to spend capital buying businesses but what really matters is whether or not that translates into pro rata real extra profits…

And staying with my preferred metric ~ that clearly you’re not a fan of ~ and working from the tangible net equity of the company each balance sheet divided by the number of shares declared to be in issue at each balance sheet date in order to arrive at the tangible book value per share at each accounts period, I end up with:

2020: BVPS 676p less b/f BVPS 840.7p + div paid 41p = reality check loss per share of (123.2p)

2021: BVPS 751.2p less b/f BVPS 676p + div paid 60p = reality check EPS of 135.2p

2022: BVPS 572.9p less b/f BVPS 751.2p + div paid 63p = reality check loss (115.3p)

Total overall loss per share 2020 to 2022 = (103.3p).

Using the same methodology for the previous three years, 2017 to 2019, gives reality check EPS figures of 75.7p, 98.7p & 108.7p respectively.

That’s a total EPS for the three years of 283.1p.

Mind you ~ I am known to be prone to senior moments, and it’s always possible there’s an error or two in my calculations…?!

However, if your view is that profit has doubled for the most recent three years compared to the previous three years, which is starkly different to my view & which is that profits have not only dived but they’ve disappeared down the plughole, we are clearly using somewhat different metrics by which to form our respective understandings…

However, you have not said how exactly you come to your numbers…?

I think the bottom line to this discussion ~ and thanks for engaging with me on this, by the way ~ is that it takes two different views to make a market in any share at any time, whether they be close together or far apart…

And I reckon our respective views fall into the latter category…

I suppose, at the end of the day, maybe we’ll remember this discussion in a few years’ time and, if we’re still both in the land of the living (I don’t make assumptions about that these days..!) maybe we can revisit this in due course when we’ve seen how things have shaped up in the rear view mirror in due course…?

And I have to own that I only really lobbed a small piece of ordnance into Vistry this morning because the house builder share chat on LSE seems to have become a bit dull of late and I was looking to liven it up a bit…! :-)

Strictly

“Vistry is delivering for shareholders. That’s the bottom line.”

…………..

TMS,

You’re not the first here on LSE to be unimpressed with my “rear view mirror” approach to investing, and I don’t imagine you’ll be the last either..?

However, it has served me well over more than twenty years of investing just in house builder shares & has provided me with a more than adequate living over that time.

My absolute basic metric is the progress of the tangible book value of a single share, adjusted for dividends.

This is 100% rear view mirror stuff…

Taking a comparison of Bellway vs Vistry, starting in 1997, Bellway had tangible BVPS of 183p vs 185p for Vistry (then Bovis).

Pretty much the same, in other words…

Scroll forward to 2022, Bellway’s tangible BVPS is now 2,727p vs Vistry’s 573p.

Add total divs paid, Bellway 1,282p & Vistry 702p, and less starting BVPS in each case, and you have tangible BVPS gain for Bellway of 3,826p vs Vistry 1,090p…

This reflects the difference in long term average ROE… in Bellway’s case, this is 16.4% and for Vistry this is 10.2%.

Now, if you are saying that Vistry has entered some brave new world in terms of how they operate from here then, who knows, you may well be right…?

However, Telford Homes, in which I was an investor at the time, headed off down a similar road, implying that the world was their lobster with a capital-lite future ~ except it didn’t quite pan out like that in practice…

But if we’re looking at what Vistry have done for the past three years insofar as published year end accounts go, by my reckoning, and tracking tangible BVPS as above, they lost 103.3p tangible BVPS for the three years as a whole, while also paying out 164p in dividend.

The upshot of these combined was to take their tangible BVPS down from 840.2p to 572.9p.

Whatever their prospects may, or may not, be from here ~ and if you’re an intended long term holder of their shares then obviously you’re going to be optimistic about this ~ I consider myself to be rather wussy in these things and I really don’t have the cojones to be a Vistry investor.

Strictly

"Is share buy back good or bad? And how does it work?"

………………

Rad,

If this becomes a topic that gains some traction here, I would say that you would likely see a range of viewpoints expressed, following Clint Eastwood’s maxim…

But I guess it depends on whether you happen to think the share is fairly, over or underpriced…?

At a PBV of 1.3, it is currently costing 130p for every 100p of Vistry’s book value bought whereas 100p of book value could be currently purchased for 63p if it were Crest Nicholson, i.e. at less than half the cost…

And while Crest have form for being flaky with their prognostications and are currently far from best in show performance-wise ~ hence being cheap ~ they have still roughly doubled their tangible book value per share over the past ten years as compared to Vistry’s dismal 1% progress over the same period..

I guess that Vistry’s share price is up where it is because investing folk are buying into the story and the sale pitch ~ and are therefore focused on the foggy future rather than minding the murky past…?

Otherwise known as the triumph of hope over experience, I would say..?

I may well be wrong, but this seems to be a popcorn job for the medium term..?

Strictly