Britain’s biggest housebuilders have handed executives £136million in pay after their profits were boosted by the taxpayer-funded Help To Buy scheme. The astonishing bonanza at , Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG), Persimmon (PSN) and Taylor Wimpey (TW.) was shared between just 18 people, their annual reports reveal. It came after the FTSE 100 firms raked in profits of £3.6bn last year. Housebuilders have been accused of cashing in on the Government’s Help To Buy scheme, which loans families money to buy new-build homes, even as the industry reels from scandals over shoddy work and toxic leasehold contracts. At Persimmon, which paid former boss Jeff Fairburn £39m last year, Help To Buy was used in half of all sales in 2018. Yesterday, Barratt released its annual report, showing it paid three executives £7.7m overall in the year to June 30. This included £3.6m handed to boss David Thomas and £2.9m to finance chief Steven Boyes. Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre, said: ‘It seems obvious that executives shouldn’t be raking in hundreds of millions of pounds in the midst of a housing crisis. ‘It shouldn’t need saying. Big business has completely divorced itself from any sense of proportionality or social responsibility. The boards are either frighteningly negligent or utterly venal.’ The latest figures have emerged just days after MPs and ministers launched a scathing attack on the industry during a parliamentary debate.
Hedge funds banked millions of pounds yesterday as shares in the company trying to build a fertiliser mine under the North York Moors nosedived. Sirius Minerals (SXX) stock crashed by as much as 79% after it was forced to abandon a £403million fundraising and revealed it has enough cash to survive for only six months. The miner also asked the Government for support by guaranteeing loans of up to £804million but this was turned down, leaving it struggling to stay afloat and putting 1,200 jobs at risk. More than 6% of its stock was on loan to short-selling hedge funds, which bet on its troubles increasing and the value of its shares falling. Last night they closed down 5.33p, at 4.67p, which meant short-sellers could have pocketed as much as £20million.
Trackwise Designs Plc (TWD) plunged after warning full-year turnover and profits will slump amid a ‘challenging’ market. The Gloucestershire company makes printed circuit boards for clients such as GKN Aerospace. Losses widened to £87,000 between January and June, from £71,000 in the same period of 2018, and it said there will be a ‘material’ fall in its full-year figures.
plunged 35p, to 119p last night after it warned of lower than expected profits for the second time in four months.It made a first-half loss of £7.7million in the six months to June 30, compared with profits of £10.5million in the same period of last year. In addition to the usual Brexit challenges, it admitted a delay to publishing its 2018 results created uncertainty among customers. The delay came after auditor PwC received an anonymous email raising concern about accounting practices the day before the release was scheduled. Staffline, which will be hoping the only way is up from here, put aside £15million in the results to cover for historical breaches of minimum wage legislation. PwC later resigned as its bean-counter.
Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou was unable to resist the opportunity to crow at the investment firms which mounted a £139million offer for easyHotel (EZH). The bidders, Icamap and Ivanhoe Cambridge, revealed that they had bagged 68% of shares in Easyhotel. Although this is above the 50% they needed to take control of the company, it fell short of the 75% needed to take it private. Haji-Ioannou, who has built his stake through Easygroup to 28% in an attempt to block the deal, said: ‘This exercise was an object lesson in pointlessness. ‘[They] have achieved little other than to enrich lawyers and bankers. What a colossal waste of money.’
Ocado Group (OCDO) grocery delivery division enjoyed a bump in order numbers in the past three months as it joined forces with Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) and shrugged off the impact of a huge warehouse fire earlier this year. Ocado Retail – the division formed as part of a new £750million joint venture with M&S – said weekly orders rose by more than 12% during the period, thanks in part to increased delivery slots. In the division’s debut set of results, it said sales were strong, rising by 11.4% and putting the company in line with its guidance for the rest of the year. M&S products will be available through Ocado from September 2020 once the company’s 20-year partnership with upmarket rival Waitrose comes to an end. Melanie Smith, M&S’s former strategy director who took the reins at the joint venture last month, said the results highlighted Ocado’s ‘resilience’ following the fire at its Andover facility, ‘and the momentum the business has now’.
