Friday 28 December 2018

Help to Buy Pay Dividends

George Osborne introduced 'Help to Buy' in March 2013.

Here are the changes in dividends per share paid 2013 (or 2014 if I can't find 2013) vs dividend per share paid 2018 by the UK's biggest 'home builders'.

Barratts: 5.7p - 26.5p
Bellway: 37p - 227.5p
Berkeley (earnings per share): 221.8p - 562.7p
Bovis: 21.5p - 98.5p
Crest Nicholson: 10.6p - 33p
Persimmon: 65p - 110p
Redrow: 3p - 28p
Galliford Try: 53p - 77p
Taylor Wimpey: 0.6p - 4.8p
Telford Homes: 4.8p - 17p

Enough said?

7 comments:

mombers said...

But given the innovation they've created they deserve it surely? Bigger homes that run on a fraction of the energy of the 2013 ones and require half as much maintenance and clean themselves to boot!

Mark Wadsworth said...

M, lolz, presumably they'll reverse all these innovations once HTB is scrapped...

A K Haart said...

Strewth - that certainly looks like a smoking gun.

Sobers said...

Is it though? Huge amounts of government spending is aimed at giving people money so they can buy stuff. As a result lots of company's profits are based on that spending, it just passes through the initial recipient. If there were not pensions and welfare, would retailers and other consumer product suppliers make as much money? Would the drug companies have such big profits if there was socialised healthcare? Would car makers be able to sell so many cars?

The government taxes and spends 40%+ of the economy - there will hardly be a business out there that doesn't rely to some extent on some of the that spending power.

Sobers said...

"wasn't socialised healthcare"

Mark Wadsworth said...

S, any earmarked benefit is a subsidy to a particular business. Non-ear marked benefits i.e. cash which recipients can spend anyway they like are not a subsidy to any particular business.

Also, businesses pay tax, some of which goes on welfare and pensions. For every £1 tax that Sainsbury's pays, 20p goes on welfare and pensions, which end up being spent back at Sainsbury's.

If a business receives more income from earmarked benefits than it pays in tax (like private landlords or the construction industry) then it is a net subsidy/welfare recipient.

Mark Wadsworth said...

AKH, indeed.