Member Info for strictlybricks

“How do shareholders benefit from the buyback?”

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Eckie,

To clarify this using the numbers…

If we take it that the yield is (give or take) 10%, then 3% of 10% of overall market value spent re-buying shares would mean 0.3% of the shares in issue being bought back & no doubt cancelled.

So, that increases earnings per share by 0.3%.

For every year thereon…

It might not seem much but, as Tescos would have it, every little helps.

Whereas, what it may or may not do to the share price going forward is Mr Market’s business to know…?

Along with his drinking buddy, Captain Hindsight, of course… 😊

Strictly

“I seem to remember a certain SB on this board not so long ago with a strong sentiment of avoid. You can never trust these forums but occasionally it is wise to listen to those who have been around the block. Thank you”

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Onfire,

I’m taking it that you are referring to me and, as such, you have successfully nudged me into making a comment with what I consider are the numbers to back any concern here…

If we compare Bellway ~ which is my benchmark house builder share ~ with Vistry, aka Jam Tomorrow, (formerly Bovis, aka Battersea, ~ you can run but you just can’t hide…! 😊), then the cold marble slab of truth (by which I mean the numbers) stands as follows:

When Battersea arrived on the market in 1987, its BVPS was 185p compared to Bellway’s 183p.

The same, bar the shouting, in other words… and very convenient here…

Scroll on to the most recent year for which both companies have issued full year accounts ~ i.e. 2023 ~ and Bellway has increased its book value per share by 1,470% to 2.871p, whereas Battersea has only achieved a comparatively shabby 224%, up to 415p.

Also thrown in were dividends ~ 1,282p in total from Bellway, 702p from Battersea.

Not for nothing does our investing circle refer to Bellway as “Ghost Dog”.

Okay, we’ve had super-persuasive salesman, Greg Fitzgerald, installed as the big cheese at Battersea, having previously presided over the dog’s breakfast that was Galliford Try (unreasonable comment, perhaps…? Well, what other housebuilder needed to do a rights issue in the middle of the most fecund part of the property cycle ‘cos they had baffled themselves with their own bullsh.t and overpaid out on dividends based on their own, rather mythical, EPS figures..?)…

Greg, very impressively, had managed to talk the market into taking the price to book value of Battersea right up to over 2.2 by August this year…. this is seriously high for any house builder at the best of times, let alone those we find ourselves in now…

And so, just like the Monty Python block of flats built by hypnosis, it could only stay up while people believed in it…

And now, it seems, they don’t…?

So, has the market over-reacted on the downside…?

Well, given all the numbers I’ve just outlined ~ hard facts against Greg’s jam tomorrow sales pitch ~ would any rational investor who, like me, gives credence to track records, STILL rate Battersea higher that Bellway…?

Cos Bellway is currently on a PBV of 0.90 whereas Battersea is on 1.08.

You decide…?

You can maybe tell that I’m not a big fan of Vistry..? 😊

Alright ~ rant over.

Strictly

"Average purchase price is 224 pence (low I am marginally underwater already:) ) "

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Captain,

If you are not only a buyer rather than a seller of LGEN shares, let alone taking into account reinvesting dividends, and let alone that it seems you are in this for a long term buy & hold, then surely you would want the share price from here to ideally drop further…?

After all, this is the way you will be able to maximise the number of shares at retirement…

And if, from there, if the intention is to take just the dividends, it surely doesn’t matter what happens to the share price as that doesn’t affect your income…?

And if you intend to pass the shares on upon your expiry, even at that point, the lower the price the lower any inheritance tax…

So, it would surely only be AFTER your lifetime that you might want the share price to go up….?

Unless your beneficiaries intending continuing with your financial prudence, and simply remain in LGEN, reinvesting their dividends for their retirement in due course in turn…

Of course, all this can seem counter-intuitive, as we surely mostly all get a warm glow when our investments are increasing in market value…?

But, I think, LGEN is the oldest constituent of the FTSE100 (I imagine that Meco or someone will correct me if I’m wrong on that…?) so, as a company, it may well outlive the lot of us…!? 😊

Strictly

“People overpaid for the shares in 1999.

If people overpay for a share, then their future returns are inhibited.

And as you state, it's the future return that counts, not the past. Why do so many people take their cue from past performance, instead of focusing on the future?

I don't understand it.”

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

Captain,

Well, I'm with you on the first part of this...

But I am very much a rear view mirror investor, so I guess that might, to some extent, give us different perspectives with regards to the second part of what you've written...?

Or maybe not…?

Bringing a somewhat Buddhist approach to this, things have a nature…

And here, we’re talking about the nature of the insurance boys and the nature of the market…

And it seems to me that LGEN as a company have been toodling along as a company for decades much more steadily than the market gives them credit for.

So, it seems to me that Mr Market is NOT Buddhist in nature…?

Even though he does have a nature…! 😊

And across my previous two comments here, I think I have shown that, in the past, an investor could have relied very heavily on what LGEN’s dividend yield was at any time with regards to choosing when to invest….?

And now Mr Market ~ for his own good reasons no doubt if he does indeed have such a thing as a collective mind ~ has taken the dividend yield right up above 9% once more…

And, okay, the market is driven by fear and greed.

But there’s also a saying that the four most dangerous words in investing are: “It’s different this time”.

And I stand vulnerable to having that thrown back at me in respect of the house builders ~ whose shares I have exited this year after more that twenty years of that being my entire game.

So, I’m just getting that in before anyone else does…! 😊

Strictly

"Hi strictly, yes an average investor annual return of 3.4%. sounds about right, which is not bad but not amazing either, but if you choose another start date like 3 years ago it would look a lot different..."

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Rob,

Thanks for your reply…

And yes, that’s EXACTLY my point…..

Because, by the same calculation process, if you’d bought LGEN on 31/3/03 @ 69.50p, the yield at that time was 7.0% and the average overall annual return would have been 9.1%.

And if you’d caught LGEN absolutely right, on 28/2/09, @ 40.2p, the yield at that time was 9.5% ~ i.e. pretty much bang on what it is now ~ and the average overall annual return would then have been far from shabby at 16.1%.

And although that hasn’t beaten the game of investing in house builders over that same timescale, my fear is that the golden age of house builders may, or may not, be in the past…?

I don’t know, but either way I’m calling pause for myself with regards to investing in them until there’s more clarity about their direction of travel in terms of underlying performance, hence being now invested across the insurance boys and RIO.

And whereas, up to the last year or two, my “passage planning” rate for investment return had been 15% a year, now I’m only planning at an annual average 10% gain from here.

So, on that basis, LGEN & co only need to achieve two thirds of their average long term gain from here on that they did when their div yield was last at the current level, and I would have slightly surpassed my passage planning rate.

And that’s before switching between the companies as inter-company share price volatility allowed, as opportunities arise, to hopefully continue to be able to add an annual average few percent a year to the gain as I have done in the past with house builder shares.

And the big bonus with the insurance boys is that this is all coming out in dividends ~ so I don’t need to be concerned about what that nutter, Mr Market, is doing at any point…

Anyway, Rob, your response has prompted me to do some further number crunching, that has resulted in some further clarity on this for me…! 😊

So, thanks for that ~ it’s part of what commenting here on LSE is all about for me… 😊

Strictly

"My evaluation of the LGEN’s fundamentals suggests to me that LGEN is reasonably healthy..."

………………….

Lending,

To bring some numbers to bear on your point ~ with which I agree to the extent that I understand LGEN’s numbers ~ as follows:

These figures are taken from LGEN’s website plus the London Stock Exchange graphing tool.

On 31/1/99, LGEN’s share price was 201.48p, and currently it is 222.10p, so a share price growth of 10% in total across twenty five years ~ which is, of course, hardly stellar.

The 1999 dividend was 3.79p, a yield of 1.9%.

Scroll forward to 2024, and the anticipated total dividend is around 21.36p, a yield of 9.6%, i.e. five times greater than in 1999.

So the first question to maybe ask is: “Was LGEN a five times better company in 1999 than it is now…?”

Now take a different fix on this.

The share price may have hardly moved, but LGEN has paid out 265.78p in dividend in total over the period.

If this had been reinvested each time in the year received (and praise the good Lord for Excel ~ which makes all these insights so easily accessible…), that would give an overall average investor annual return of 3.4%.

Whereas now, even if the share price goes absolutely nowhere from here, and even if the dividend payment doesn’t increase by one iota more, ever, from here, one is still buying a return on investment of 9.6% a year.

Which is nearly three times greater than the 1999 offer.

And when you allow that, barring mishap, the dividend is likely to increase over time then, even if the share price doesn’t, you would still be looking at that three times improvement above moving towards the five times gap in yield which is the stark contrast between 1999 and now.

And obviously, sitting here with Captain Hindsight ~ as we all are ~ I can pick a start date that suits my point.

But clearly there were buyers in 1999 who thought the LGEN price was right, just as there are folk here who think the price ain’t right now.

But, for what it’s worth, I’m happy with it ~ and that’s before taking into consideration any opportunities that may arise to trade between LGEN, MNG & PHNX based on any worthwhile inter-share price volatility.

And my final thought on this here is that, if you go with Warren Buffett’s maxim of “Preferred holding time ~ forever..!” then it’s surely 100% down to taking a view on the underlying value and 0% down to whatever the share price is doing at any time..?

Strictly

"Aviva has been my best investment the last cpl of years with full dividend yield and also capital gain, lgen was over £3 a few years ago, it has to be said it's been disappointing lately"

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Rob,

If you use the Stock Exchange graphing tool (a very useful bit of kit that I've only recently come across, and it's free) to make a total return comparison chart for LGEN and AV. for the past five years then, overall, they are pretty much square...

And there are various points ~ Feb 2020; several times between June 2020 & June 2021; March 2022, then a long gap until June 2024 when they have touched or crossed...

So, based on the above, you would have surely unfortunately picked an entry moment other than one of the above...?

Go back over seven, or eight years, and LGEN has out-performed AV. on those time scales

So, apart from timing, the graph informs us that if you can call the relative value of each, irrespective of whether prices are high or low overall as calling those is a very differewnt world ~ one which is inhabited by day traders and such creatures have far bigger cojones than me, I'm afraid ~ then there are potentially opportunities for additional gains, while always remaining fully invested (apart from momentarily, obviously, between the buys & sells).

This is something that has worked for myself and my investing crew in the house builder sector over many years, as previously described here, and which is what I'm aiming to be able to do here having this year switched sectors....

Always with the proviso that if Mr Market doesn't offer me any perceived opportunities to switch, I'm happy sitting where I am and collecting the dividends...

Always good to have a plan B, and all that...

So, the only issue remains:

"Are the dividends safe?"

To know that, I'd no doubt have to cosy up to Captain Hindsight ~ but, of course, that old b.stard is never there when you need him...!

Strictly

"Has the way profits are totted up changed? Looking at fundamentals £433 million was profit / 2023. Divi payout over £1 billion. What am I missing? Will someone please, as a layman, how this is sustainable. I understand that a near 10% yield is looking fixed for future years but where is this coming from? I am sure there is a logical reason for divi and I apologise for my ignorance but would like an explanation if someone has time, cheers."

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Bert,

I suggest you simply scroll back through this LGEN chat to find Meconopsis’s most recent comment, click on his name, then scroll back through his LGEN comments and read those….

Without wishing to unduly blow smoke up his a.se, he explains things with exceptional lucidity, and I am confident you will find what you want to know there…. 😊

Strictly

"I don’t trade so my understanding of that trading game is very limited. As an investor who seeks out quality companies with a time horizon hopefully ”for ever” my approach is necessarily very different. "

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Lending,

My investing approach is arguably an amalgam of what you perhaps regard trading to be and your hold forever approach, and not really anything to do with what perhaps most folk here would regard trading to be…?

Nearly all of the “trading chat” here seems to be about what the share price might do the next morning, or next week, or next year…?

I don’t have the ability, or the confidence, to try to call the market ~ so I very much DON’T attempt to do that…

However, in the world of house builder shares, I did consider myself reasonably competent based on many years’ experience ~ and also from being in possession of key house builder performance numbers going back even further to the early ‘80’s ~ to call relative value of different house builder shares based on their respective share prices at any time…

And I have done well with that… Bellway’s average ROE over nearly forty years until just a few years ago was around 16%, and I have been on average able to improve upon that for myself and for others via moving between shares…

Until now…

However, I now fear the golden age of house builders may be over ~ hence my decamp as a novice to the insurance boys….

But, to come back to it, I consider it to be philosophically vital, in the way that I have invested up to now, to be prepared & happy to remain with any particular share for however long required in the event that the market doesn’t make me an offer I can’t refuse…

In that respect, it seems I then align with you..?

Despite that, Mr Market has always come through, in his own sweet time ~ but I have to allow that, one day, he doesn’t…?

And this is also a different matter to either having made a mistake on a share ~ and I have made my fair share of those ~ or a company’s prospects slipping, as then it’s a matter of taking the haircut accordingly…

But the numbers show that the plan has worked overall…

Whereas, from here, I am passage planning for lower average annual investment returns…

And that’s even before starting to contemplate what the nutters the nation has elected to run the country do to the economy at large, and house builders in particular…? ☹

Strictly

“But then shareholder return is more like 10.5% if you factor in the £200M share buyback. I was wondering whether this was part of your deliberations?”

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Lending,

You are potentially opening up a Pandora’s Box of discussion here, because there may be many who don’t think much of my investing strategy (but I’m not trying to sell anything here) so I’ll try to give the essence of it…

Firstly, having spent the past twenty years earning my living from house builder shares I am now the new kid on the block with the insurance boys…

So how I’m looking to proceed here is relatively untested though I’m working with a simple focus the same as I did with house builder shares, just that I’m focusing on something different.

With house builder shares, for me, it was entirely about the book value progress of a single share, adjusted for dividends…

That’s it ~ the only thing that kyboshes that is a rights issue…

The companies themselves may provide a Harry Potter novel-sized report, but essentially I was just interested in the tangible BVPS b/f, which I already had, the tangible value of the balance sheet, the number of shares in issue, and the divs paid in the period.

That gave me everything ~ you could effectively bin the rest… from those numbers came real EPS, real P/E and real ROE.

And build that up over years and then, as far as the cold marble slab of truth is concerned, I mean, the numbers, as McCaulay Calkin said in Home Alone: “You can run but you just can’t hide!”.

So, now it’s the insurance boys… and I don’t understand their balance sheets well (though Meco has done his bit to help there, thanks).

So, for me, it’s all about: “Are the dividends safe…?”

With house builders, outside of the covid iceberg, I remained invested throughout and continually switched between shares pursuing best perceived value.

The game as I see it now (subject to possibly coming to the view that, just like house builders, not all insurance boys are equal..?), is to switch between them in pursuit of ever-increasing dividend income ~ in other words, to keep growing the golden goose.

At this early stage, for me, it’s pretty much as straightforward as that, though slightly now complicated by also having introduced RIO into the game…

And maybe it’ll get more complicated as I go..?

It became so for house builders, with book value weightings which effectively gave me a currency for house builder shares…

And, to finally answer your question, no, share buybacks don’t feature at all for me….

Because, surely, the extent to which they have any real impact ~ beyond being an investor discussion point and an accompanying short term impact on the share price ~ will surely come out in the wash in due course in more, or less, EPS and therefor more, or less, dividend…?

Strictly

“I would be grateful for your thoughts & other posters on Av.”

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Gary,

Whereas I like to think that twenty years or so spent investing solely in house builder shares, along with endless spreadsheets analysing data on them going back forty years, has given me some understanding of their individual worth, I consider that my understanding of the insurance boys is far shallower…

As I said in my previous comment, my almost sole concern here is regarding the dividend and “Is it safe..?” (a bit like the dentist scene in the film “The Boys from Brazil” many years ago… 😊).

And if it proves to be not safe, I guess that all bets are off with this….?

But, if it IS safe, and if the dividends all progress from here at a similar rate ~ which, as things stand, is looking like around 2% a year and therefore matching target inflation ~ then I consider I have a simplistic yardstick with which to transfer the Game of Strictly Bricks (that being the name of our blog as well as my moniker here) to, effectively, the Game of Strictly Insurance Boys.

And that game has a simple & straightforward aim.

Which is to keep increasing the overall dividend due over the course of a year as much as I reasonably can by moving between the three of them ~ I mean, LGEN, MNG & PHNX ~ continuously pursuing better dividend yields as relative share prices fluctuate.

And those dividend yields are currently 9.5%, 9.9% and 10.4%.

In other words, it doesn’t require much inter share price volatility for these to potentially cross over each other.

However, to finally get to your question, Aviva has a yield of only 6.7%, i.e. way off the others….

And, regardless of whether Aviva is or isn’t a better or worse company than the others (and I don’t have a view on that), never-the-less it would require a serious relative price shift for them to be able to join the game.

Hence, as things stand, I don’t hold them…

This is, perhaps, a somewhat less illuminating answer than you were maybe hoping for, but I’m just being frank with you…

I have, as of last week for the first time ever, added Rio Tinto to the game….

And you might say: “Hold on, their yield is pretty much the same as Aviva’s..!”

Yes, but I have a weighting system, successfully deployed for house builder shares for many years amongst our crew in the G of SB, that can be deployed here given that RIO are a different sector, and which I’m not up for using for Aviva as things stand…

I’m not confident all that helps you much, though…? ☹

Strictly

"PE shown here and HL as 30. Simply wall st fwd PE of over 40, but says it's undervalued. "

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Robina,

I would imagine that Meco has already sufficiently explained the situation in his typically lucid manner, but if you wanted to look at this from a completely different angle ~ that of simply common sense without necessarily knowing anything much of the specific underlying situation ~ then:

For LGEN to be paying a current dividend at a yield of 9.6%, if you divide 100 by 9.6 then you arrive at 10.4 ~ which means that LGEN requires a P/E of just over 10, not 30, in order to simply cover the dividend with earnings.

If they are to make progress with retained earnings for future growth, and all that fine stuff, the P/E would necessarily have to be accordingly lower than 10.

Simply put, if the underlying P/E was 30, or anywhere close to that, it would be seriously irresponsible for the company to be whacking out a dividend at a yield of 9.6% unless they were anticipating an imminent huge uplift in profitability.

For myself, having until recently been solely invested in house builder shares (as the name implies ~ but I had been invested in that game for over twenty years), I feel I have a much shallower understanding of the insurance boys than house builders ~ I have only come out of that sector now because I fear for its future and consider the house builder shares may currently be somewhat overpriced based on forecast future profitability..?

So, I am now invested in the insurance boys ~ I mean, LGEN, MNG & PHNX ~ based on the dividend yield.

And there’s one straightforward thing I need in order to feel reassured about being here ~ that is “Is the dividend safe..?”

If it is, history suggests the market will continue to present small, recurring opportunities to trade between the three based on modest percentages of inter-share volatility of share prices from time to time.

That was the game for us (that is, my circle of investors) in the house building sector, and it’s just that many of us have now fully or partly switched sectors to play it in.

Strictly

Ps Strictly,

"Do you still have Bdev fair value at £4.49 I believe it was when you last ‘priced’ them? "

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

That would be about it, but until the half time whistle I don't have a number that include's Redrow's finals as they've dropped off the listings...

And, to be frank, I haven't been ars.d to look for them elsewhere as Barratt is now currently rather peripheral to my investing interests until & unless the prospects for house builders ~ as seen through the eyes of the scribblers and their forecasts ~ have improved hugely, so I'm not imagining that happening any time soon...?

And especially with the current omni-shambles running the country ~ though, of course, others may have more confidence in them than me..?

That would be a pretty low bar though...

Strictly

Still the same Strictly.

Just to confirm that I've sent you an email...

And if, for whatever reason, you didn't receive it, you could always email me and I can reply on that...

Strictly

"I don’t appear to have access to the blog anymore which has upset me a little. I thought I’d upset you in some way. "

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Crossley,

That appens sometimes as Wordpress which hosts the blog can be a bit cranky it seems...

So it's not me cancelling you ~ honest, guv..!

Rather than sort this here ~ which apart from anything would no doubt be boring for others ~ I'm intending sending you an email...

Still the same email address...?

Strictly

"Strictly , can I ask you reasons for not being invested in house builders anymore , do you not see potential for recovery with Psn sp ?"

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Christofer,

The average scribbler-forecast ROE for Bellway, my benchmark builder share, for the next three years is 5.6%.

This is around just a third of their long term track record ~ and I've got figures on them going back around forty years so I really do mean long term...

And their average PBV over time has stood at about 1.4 to 1.5...

But with a PBV of, currently, 1.07, the price earnings ratio is nudging 25, whereas the above numbers I've given imply an average P/E of around 10.

So, although it pains me to acknowledge it ~ because in our circle we have all loved Bellway for many years as a share and it is affectionately known as Ghost Dog (you’d probably have to have seen the film to understand that?), and although Mr Market, thus far this year, has radically disagreed with me, I’m seeing Bellway as currently being significantly overpriced.

So, for myself (and not for anyone else ~ DYOR and all that fine stuff) I have called pause on house builders until I can see how things are shaping up? ~ by which I mean, the direction of travel of EPS forecasts from here from the scribblers.

Because if Captain Hindsight pitched up and told me that the house builders have had their golden age and that from now on it’s going to be about p.ss poor profit margins (and who’s to say that that couldn’t happen if the Labour government successfully manage to largely turn Bellway et al into jobbing builders for social housing output, or whatever..?), there are other places to invest which, as things stand, for me are the insurance boys ~ and now, as of this week, Rio.

And I have made a significant new discovery this week..

It is the “Total Return” button on the London Stock Exchange’s share price graphing tool (which also happens to be a freebie).

Bl..dy hell, that has made share comparison a shed-load easier ~ and made the decision to buy RIO a whole lot quicker and simpler.

But no crystal ball, I’m afraid, so I would fear to try to directly answer your question… ☹

Strictly

"I’ve gone larger into Rio.

Had great results for the last three years at buying at the £45-46 mark and exiting around £60. "

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Crossley,

I don't know whether you still look at the SB blog, but your comment here provoked me into taking another decent look at RIO ~ something I hadn't done seriously for a good number of years and, yes, I came to the same view as you and have now made a substantial investment there.....

So, thanks for that ~ even though you would no doubt not have been aiming your comment at anyone in particular... :-)

And, for the first time in twenty four years, I am now completely out of house builder shares as things stand...

Mind you ~ I'm not intending changing my moniker...!

Strictly

"They’ve more or less doubled their money on Cala in six years, which is a good result given the macro-economics."

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

Meco,

To back up your comment, the share price of Bellway ~ the steadiest of the house builders, IMO ~ has gone sideways, give or take, for the past six years.

So, ignoring dividends on either side, and without looking back into the numbers for Cala, one might surely argue that the upfront part of the price paid, i.e. half, for Cala was reasonably fair value in the current market, and that what is paid over and above that in subsequent years is the profit…?

So, maybe this gain will show through in and over the years it’s paid rather than in the current year..?

Perhaps a bit ironic as it’s similar to new accounting requirements on their business in general…?

I’m a substantial holder of LGEN….

As I’ve said here before, I’m not bovvered about the movement of the share price per se though I would very much like to see the share price volatility between LGEN and the two other insurance boys that I hold & trade between ~ MNG & PHNX ~ continue in order to trade between them a la the Game of Strictly Bricks that I’ve successfully played with the house builders for the past twenty years but whose golden era now has a question mark against it in my view in terms of whether it’s over..?

Whereas, if Captain Hindsight could assure me that the divs from the insurance boys are not only safe but will rise by inflation or more, I absolutely don’t think I could reasonably complain at that…

Especially if they can be added to by gains from trading between them ~ which is what I’m looking for…

I think that this has caused some consternation on the blog in some corners, as the game has been good for a long time, and folk don’t like change…

But, to paraphrase Pink Floyd, if the dam breaks open many years too soon, it probably helps to be looking for a place on the hill before the crowd gets its act together…?

I’m imagining we’ll have some further discussion about all this at a future point ~ elsewhere, though, as we’ve discussed separately…? 😊

Strictly

Crossley,

Yes ~ if Vistry does turn out to be the Emperor's new clothes, it potentially has an awfully long way to fall...

So I reckon it would take a better man than me, Gunga Din, to venture there...

Meanwhile, as one or two of us have discussed on the blog, it's a popcorn job....

And it it proves in due course that we've missed out, well, so what...?

For me, that's a far lesser thing than investing there against all my instincts and being wrong that way....

Strictly

"Maybe they are taking a leaf out of the Vistry book? 1 year performance here 13%. Vistry 61%?"

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Crossley,

As you’ll no doubt be aware, I am NOT a fan of Vistry…

In its previous incarnation as Bovis (which reminds me of Hermes becoming Evri, trying to escape their inglorious past…. an odd name to choose, seeing as it seems to describe the number of parcels they apparently lose..?), Vistry was a serially poor performer of the house builders going right back to the nineties…

And, over the past decade, they have continued thus…

End of 2013, their BVPS was 604p.

Scroll forward ten years, their BVPS hasn’t really moved ~ well, it’s actually dropped slightly ~ at 600p.

For 2024, we have declared EPS at the half time whistle of 33.9p vs reality check EPS (using BVPS start & finish adjusted for dividends) by my calculation of 29.3p.

That makes for an ROE of 4.9%, so double that for the year makes 9.8% against the scribblers’ forecast 15% full year ROE.

So, on these numbers, one could surely argue that Bovis could have reasonably been renamed “Jam Tomorrow” rather than Vistry ~ I mean, they’re not even paying a dividend now..!

But I do take my hat off to Greg Fitzgerald ~ he’s successfully talked the game up to the point whereby Vistry’s PBV is over 2.2.

Based on the overall sector’s track record, this would have been heady stuff even in the good times, let alone now.

So, if there’s any sort of prize going for the triumph of salesmanship over experience, I award it to Greg.

In the meantime, being an investing wuss, I am watching, armed with popcorn, from the sidelines ~ though I maybe stand to be proved very wrong…?

Strictly