riverside red
09 Mar 2017
Re: Interim ex-div day (25pps) Make the most of it, allowance drops to £2000 for 2018/19 due to yesterday's budget.
Rhigos
09 Mar 2017
Re: Interim ex-div day (25pps) Eadwig, "When does the new tax on dividend 'savings' come in?"The current tax year 2016/17.[link] 6 April 2016, the notional 10% tax credit on dividends is abolished. A £5,000 tax free dividend allowance is introduced. Dividends above this level are taxed at 7.5% (basic rate), 32.5% (higher rate), and 38.1% (additional rate) Dividends received by pensions and ISAs are unaffected."Just looked at my dealing account dividend spread sheet and it will cost me around £90. But not next year as will move £20K into my ISA share account after 5 April.
Eadwig
09 Mar 2017
Re: Interim ex-div day (25pps) Yeah, I know Mark, but I don't always know what day it is!That site is normally fine. It had ALL companies going ex-div this week dated on Wednesday and removed them all before the open of the market on Wednesday, which is their usual practice (except for doing it on the wrong day). Being half asleep, it fooled me.They obviously had an input error on the date, somehow, because everything next week and onwards is listed on the usual Thursday (16th, 23rd, 30th March, 6th April etc.).No need to take any notice of the record date, by the way, when buying online. Not with ii, anyway, and I believe that is the case for all electronic brokers.When does the new tax on dividend 'savings' come in? Is it 2017/18 or the year after? If the year after, we'll see a lot of payments being brought forward, I bet, including PSN. They did it before when the rules changed (in fact they only just moved back to July for 'the return of capital') and I bet there are a lot of PSN holders affected. My dad has his 'savings allowance' of £5,000 wiped out by PSN alone. And he's never put any stocks in an ISA.
Mark Y38
09 Mar 2017
Re: Interim ex-div day (25pps) For the last few years, almost all major companies ex-div on a Thursday. It moved from Wednesday when settlement time was reduced. Record dates stayed 6pm Friday. Be suspiscious of any site that says otherwise. This is why I was so confused when I read the Standard Life financial report until I realised that the huge gap between ex-div and record dates was due to Easter being in between. I am sure they did it to confuse me.
Eadwig
09 Mar 2017
Re: Interim ex-div day (25pps) Yes, it is in fact today. Sorry about that. First time [link] has let me down. I should have checked the PSN site.
Mark Y38
08 Mar 2017
Re: Interim ex-div day (25pps) I think you will find ex-div is tomorrow (Thursday) with the record date being end of business on Friday.
Eadwig
08 Mar 2017
Interim ex-div day (25pps) Ex-div today for the interim.If the ex-div price drop is over-done. it might be an entry point for some people to get the already declared final div of 110pps (see posts below for ex-div date), sometime in June from memory.Of course, take care because it is budget day, and it has long been expect that there will be help for the housing sector in this budget. But, no rumours as yet - and there have been lots of leaks of the budget contents.Also, originally when this boost was first discussed, the government were talking about help for small-medium companies. So debatable if anything in the budget will help PSN, and if there is nothing at all, there may be a a drop on disappointment across the sector. PSN does have the lowest average house price of the majors, so some types of help (based on house price) may benefit PSN more than other majors. In that is the case, PSN price being depressed by the sector generally could make for a brief buying opportunity. A quick check of the last trading updates will give you the average house price on each of the majors.So, if you are thinking of buying, you already missed the interim ex-div, and there's a bit of a gamble involved in terms of budget reaction which we should see later today, but probably also tomorrow as the small print gets digested.
Eadwig
08 Mar 2017
Strong Buy Signal To be consistent, I'm obliged to post this classic Strong Buy signal I.e. a director buy at or close to multi-week highs, even though I don't believe there is much upside from here in terms of share price growth. (He seems to have more ISA allowance than me!)"PSN announces that it has been notified that on 6 March 2017 Neil Thompson, husband of Rachel Kentleton, Non-Executive Director bought 710 shares in the Company at an average price of £21.167 for his SIPP. As a result of this transaction Ms Kentleton and her husband are interested in 3,181 shares. "
Rhigos
28 Feb 2017
Re: How will PSN fare when Help to Buy s... Eadwig,Despite DIGS over subscribed share offer I got what I had applied for, more than doubling my holding of DIGS shares. My new PSN holding is still 4.11% of total portfolio compared with DIGS 2.88%. I am aware that most foreign students studying in UK are not from EU. There are a lot from China. The weaker pound should make UK more attractive for them. London is one of the most prestigious places for richer foreign students to come to.Happy with increasing my exposure to REIT sector and slightly reducing my exposure to house-building.BLND which I am showing a loss on came out with good results today so perhaps REIT sector due to outperform for a change. Sector hit badly by BREXIT, overdone IMO when you look at long leases for offices.If I was not heavily over weight in house-building sector I would be a buyer of PSN. It is by far the best of the bunch I have shares in.
fitcontroller
27 Feb 2017
Re: Dividends a very well written and informative article, thankyou
Eadwig
27 Feb 2017
Re: How will PSN fare when Help to Buy s... Rhigos, "IMO base interest rates cannot stay as low as 0.25% for long."I am of a similar opinion. But before and after the last rate decision to stay at 0.25%, I heard radio 4 ask three different experts independently of what they or their company's best bet on a B of E rate rise was and all three said not until 2018 at the earliest.I thought that inflation taking off in such an alarming way couldn't possibly be ignored, nor do I buy the 'peak of around 3.2% for a couple of months' forecast around early 2018 [closer to 5% in my opinion), however, inflation didn't rise quite as quickly as previous months in Jan, so that did ease pressure a little. Every quarter point rise, while probably hardly affecting mortgages initially, will see the markets cut builder's stock prices to some degree. That's just how it is and always has been. More problematic for actually selling houses and squeezing margins is inflation over-taking wage inflation (which has only had a very short positive period in real terms over the last decade), compounded by higher costs due to increased skills shortages and imported materials due to the devaluation of the pound.Interesting that you sold PSN to raise money for DIGS. I think DIGS (and all other student accommodation and related investments) are far more at risk from Brexit, as foreign students make up the bulk of the net immigration figures ( a ludicrous piece of government 'accounting' in my opinion ) and the UK is likely to lose the greater part of its research and development funding on Brexit - a process which has already started in fact. Only 7% of foreign students are from the EU, by the way. That was all set to become many more after years of wrangling about EU students getting the same treatment as British students (foreign students typically pay 50% higher fees), but Brexit will end all that presumably.On a visit to York for 2 months over new year and into Feb I walked around whole areas of the city that have been regenerated by student accommodation (a bit of physical research - ESP, my main play on student accommodation have upped their current and future presence significantly in York).York voted Remain by 70-30 in the Brexit vote, yet there is a very high level of moans and complaints about numbers of foreign students and student accommodation being built in York where there is a lack of affordable housing and a critical lack of council housing. The two aren't in anyway related, of course, but try telling that to a York taxi driver or frequent letter writer to the local press. Unfortunately HMG looks set to clamp down on student visas, largely driven by this type of attitude and the chosen interpretation of the Brexit vote, and at a time when British applications fell slightly for the first time in years (2016/17 academic year).The main danger for the student accommodation sector right now could be an overshoot in provision if growth is curtailed too sharply. Higher end property prices may also be hit in London and other areas when R&D projects based on collaboration between international companies and higher education are cut back due to an enforced lack of talent to draw upon. At least the devaluation of GBP is a positive for the higher education sector (not if an artificial limit is placed on numbers, of course). A report I read recently stated 75% of new build housing sales in London were foreign buyers, also presumably due to the weakened pound, but also, perhaps, the expectation that London is experiencing a period of lower prices before taking off again. No doubt DIGS are of that opinion if raising extra cash specifically for London properties.PSN's geographical diversification and lower average house prices (mainly as a consequence of same) than other major builders should help guard against interest rate rise impacts on buyers. I haven't checked the latests figures, but around this time last year PSN's average price, while still historica
barrelscraper
27 Feb 2017
Re: Dividends Eadwig. Thank you for your informative and helpful post.
Cactus Spine
27 Feb 2017
Eadwig - Return of Capital or XD? It is worth pointing out, to avoid confusion, that according to Persimmon themselves this morning, the effective "ex- dividend dates" are March 9th for the 25p and June 15th for the 110p.
Eadwig
27 Feb 2017
Dividends Pretax profit came in at £774.8m, from £629.5m. Revenue was £3.1bn, from £2.9bn. The board still continue to refer to the capital return plan, but have increased this years payment by 25p and are calling it an interim dividend. Another step toward a more orthodox payment of dividends. The scheduled 'return of capital' remains unchanged, except the payment dates have now returned back to the original dates of payment in July (they were brought forward to beat a change in the tax law initially)So, the schedule for dividend *payments* (Not ex-div dates) now looks like this:Mar. 2017 25p ('Interim Dividend' FY 2016)July 2017 110p ('Final Dividend' FY 2016)July 2018 110p (Scheduled Final Dividend)July 2019 110p (Scheduled Final Dividend)July 2020 110p (Scheduled Final Dividend)July 2021 110p (Scheduled Final Dividend)As it stands the nine year plan which completes in July 2021 will have repaid 925pps if all current timetabled payments are completed as scheduled. I would expect to see future payments split into 'interim' and 'final' dividends, which could well bring forward part of the payment currently scheduled for July 2018. PSN have both expanded and 'forward loaded' the 'return of excess capital' ever since the timetable was first introduced in 2012. An audit trail of the scheduled payments, changes made and actual payments can be found on their web site:[link] long term holders will hope that there is an interim dividend added to each of the next 4 years remaining in the timetable, but the steady PSN management wont do it unless results warrant it.At a current price of @2000p PSN yields 6.75%, and considerably more than that when I recommended adding on weakness between @1650p-1800p in November (see post below). That is better than most REITs manage, and they tend to not have the same capacity for growth.Those with no exposure to the housing sector and hunting for yield could do worse than to consider PSN a buy at the current price of approx @2000p prior to ex-div dates although should consider the comments below.Forward outlook remains positive, so although the price is bound to take a hit on ex-dividend dates, anyone looking for north of 6% yield should keep a watch on PSN through the Summer and Autumn for a decent entry point, in my opinion, although I remain aware that we are somewhere around the end of the current housing cycle and uncertainties remain around Brexit, not least the fall-off in population growth HMG seem determined to bring about. PSN tend to lag the housing cycle slightly, historically, because of their lack of exposure to the London market, which also has been reflected in their less extreme price movements throughout housing cycles compared to other national builders such as BDEV. PSN could benefit greatly from the up-coming budget, although rumours have been for months that the government is liable to introduce measures more specifically designed to help small-medium sized builders. Whether or not they can do that to the exclusion of the larger builders, while retaining their stated pledge to add 1,000,000 new homes by May 2020 when they are already well behind the curve, I tend to doubt.There have also been rumours of using 'modular housing' (pre-fab) methods to speed up the delivery of extra housing with less requirement for skilled labour on-site, and PSN do have a division that can capitalise on that. They have also expanded their capacity to produce their own bricks which has been a drag on the speed of new build housing in the past requiring imports which have soared in price for obvious reasons. Therefore PSN are well positioned to take advantage of measures to speed up new housing delivery that HMG may introduce - and have taken steps to keep costs under control at the same time.So, I certainly will continue to hold for now and I retain the belief that
charlus
27 Feb 2017
Results A very positive set of results with all key measures heading in the right direction. Even an added sweetener for shareholders with a extra 25p thrown into the dividend ( or capital return if you prefer) pot.However, as I write the SP has just turned negative so not everyone likes the results as much as I do.Best of luck to all.
