Barratt Announcement?

Lstclair55

Hi All,

Have heard on the grape vine that Barratt are to make an announcement tomorrow?

Anyone else heard about this?

thriftybabe

Not heard anything. It might be worthwhile doing a search on the internet and see if anything turns up. It won't be good news thats for sure.

napoleon

It's either a profits warning, redundancies or a rights issue. Or maybe all 3 :rotfl:
Either way, sell now!!

Trollfever

From Interim Management Statement 14th May 2008:

Mark Clare, Group Chief Executive commented:
“Despite the deterioration in current trading conditions, we expect to deliver a satisfactory outcome for the current financial year.”
“Against the difficult market backdrop, we continue to prioritise margin management and cash generation by focusing on efficient and effective selling, reducing costs, and tightly controlling land spend and work-in-progress.”
“We do not expect to see a meaningful upturn in the housing market until there are improvements in the availability of mortgage finance. We do, however, continue to believe the medium-term outlook remains strong given the restricted supply of housing in the UK.”

http://www.barratt-investor-relations.co.uk/media/releases/Content.aspx?id=1532

julz1982

Yes and Bradford and Bingley said they were in a sound financial position and would not require any additional funding a few weeks before announcing a £300m rights issue.

What a company says today and what it does tomorrow are not always the same thing.

HammersFan

It could be that they are selling David Wilson Homes - back to David Wilson at a low price. Some of the guys that work for them heard this a while ago (as a rumour).

WTF?_2

julz1982 wrote: »

Yes and Bradford and Bingley said they were in a sound financial position and would not require any additional funding a few weeks before announcing a £300m rights issue.

What a company says today and what it does tomorrow are not always the same thing.

Great to see that cynicism is back in style, big time

dopester

I'm not sure of the news you suggest is coming out later today, but Barratt don't seem to be a market darling, and perhaps the markets got a better sniff of what the announcement will be, seeing as they closed down another -3.32% on the day, although maybe all developers took a similar beating.

It's been a rough time for Barratt since the credit crunch awoke the markets to the seriousness of the situation for developers.

52 week high: £11.11p

52 week low: £2.48p

Last close: £2.40p (-3.32% on trading day)

Now... I make that an approximate -78% House Developer Stock Crash.

Of course, it's not even feasible that house prices could follow a similar path.

amcluesent

> it's not even feasible that house prices could follow a similar path<

The share price simply reflects expectations of future profits (as dividend income) as far into the future as can forecast.

For BTL, the property price should reflect future income from renting. And rents are going up.

Neillgb

amcluesent wrote: »

> it's not even feasible that house prices could follow a similar path<

The share price simply reflects expectations of future profits (as dividend income) as far into the future as can forecast.

For BTL, the property price should reflect future income from renting. And rents are going up.

Yes on the face of it better news for BTL landlords. On the other hand it could be argued that with the good chance of recession and redundancies the proportion of 'bad' tenants will rise.

Still a VERY sticky wicket for BTL I am afraid.

pipsroadster

"Given the level of reserved and contracted sales, we expect net debt at the end of June to be approximately £1.7bn."

Me thinks they need Martins help...... :rolleyes: