Berkeley (BKG) share buybacks

[Davidsb]

The 'total returns to shareholders' for BKG's interim dividend period started at £139.2m, or just over £1.05 per share

Having spent £103.2m of the total on share buy-backs since 17th August, the interim dividend is now down to just under 28p per share.

At this rate, there won't be an interim dividend at all.....

[spiderbill]

...and given the plunge in share price over the buyback period (not just the recent downturn) the theory that buybacks help the share price seems a tad hard to justify.
Wishing I'd sold at 4300p.
Sell now while I'm still (just) in profit or hold for a general market recovery...?

[Horsey]

...and given the plunge in share price over the buyback period (not just the recent downturn) the theory that buybacks help the share price seems a tad hard to justify.
Wishing I'd sold at 4300p.
Sell now while I'm still (just) in profit or hold for a general market recovery...?

Sit tight.
Wait 30 years.
Wonder what all the fuss was about.

[spiderbill]

Sit tight.
Wait 30 years.
Wonder what all the fuss was about.

Why? It was bought mainly for the dividend, it's failed to deliver that (last time I did the calculation it was giving about 2.7% instead of around 5.7%) and has instead pursued a buy-back strategy that has given me no benefit whatsoever (unless you think the sp would have dropped even more without it). IMO it's no longer a HYP share and as far as I can see it shows no prospect of becoming one again in the future short of a major reversal in board policy.

Spiderbill

[Wizard]

I swapped BKG for Barratt at close to high watermark. No idea if from a capital perspective that was a good or a bad thing as I do not follow shares I have sold, but for dividends it was definitely the right thing to do.

Terry.

[DiamondEcho]

BKG was my biggest holding for years. Then the mega share grants/bonuses the Board started to grant themselves turned me off. Then they started spending 'our' div on under-pinning 'their' huge stock holdings via buy-backs. A year or two back I bailed out and re-invested in something NOT run by a 'father + son' who clearly dominate the entire culture of the company. Feels safer and more 'democratic' and glad I did so; vs how I sense BKG as a 'family fiefdom' in retrospect.

[csearle]

Other than top-slicing I don't normally sell shares. But two things are irritating me with Berkeley Group. One of them is the uncertainty of dividend because of this policy of share buy-backs, which simply prevents me from foreseeing to any degree of accuracy what dividend I might hope for in the upcoming year; and the other is that I don't understand when their dividends might turn up. They seem to pay an indeterminate amount of interims and then sometimes a final, well that's how it seems to me. So in my list of anticipated payments, unlike any other company, there does not appear to be a set (approximate) date that repeats itself.

What with the uncertainty of the dividend amount and the (to me) strange payment schedule I am considering ditching them in favour of a company with a slightly more predictable dividend.

Chris
PS I bought between May and July of 2015 and the AER of the three tranches is currently 7.6%, 6.1%, and 4.5%.

[monabri]

Well, PSN went XD today but there's always Taylor Wimp.



The interim was 2.44p - so just over 9% yield.