Home | Log In | Register | Our Services | My Account | Contact | Help |
Market Report: Housebuilders sink on bearish broker note -
The housebuilding sector came under fire as broker Cenkos pointed to a cocktail of cracks in London’s premium-end housing market.
As concerns over the capital’s high-end market deepens, Cenkos issued a bearish broker note, downgrading housebuilders Berkeley Group, Telford Homes and Taylor Wimpey. Analysts said the changes to stamp duty, the imposition of the 3pc levy on buy-to-let and second homes in April, masked the problem sector-wide and encouraged “a bonanza of beat-the-deadline transactions” in the first quarter.
Additionally, with increasing global socio-political risks and stretched affordability, Kevin Cammack, of Cenkos, said: “The back-drop to a reversal is set in place.” Around 50pc of demand for London’s higher-value housing market comes from overseas, and the looming threat of a Brexit ahead of the referendum on June 23 have stoked fears about demand in the UK’s capital city.
Mr Cammack also said the city’s mayoral election, which saw Sadiq Khan claim the post last week, could also lead to a period of “uncertainty and change in policy directive”. With build cost inflation in London 3pc higher than the national average, Cenkos believes a stagnation in prices will “start to impact completion margins from 2017 onwards”.
Shares in Taylor Wimpey tumbled to the bottom of the blue chip index in its wake, down 2pc to 180.3p, while Berkeley Group dropped 1.4pc to £29.43 and Telford Homes slipped 0.3pc to 318.8p.
HTTP://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/05/10/ftse-100-bounces-back-on-steady-chinese-inflation-data/
" Telford Homes has raised £50m of new capital that will be used to expand, accelerate and prolong growth. The capital base is expanded and with continuing confidence in Telford’s local markets in London, we see greatly enhanced prospects. The development pipeline already extends out to FY2024F and contains up to £1.5bn of gross development value (GDV), 6.5x current year revenue, and via the new funds we expect the pipeline to expand further from FY2017F. This, along with close to £700m of forward sales, gives Telford by far the greatest earnings visibility in the sector. Coupling the now substantial capital base with still strong market opportunities for securing new sites and continued strong buyer demand, we see great value here with fair value still at 490p. The rating shows an FY2019F PER of 7.5x and P/NAV of 1.14x meaning this stock presents material upside in a sector otherwise struggling to show any.
Long visibility, sustainable growth and FY2017F forecasts raised: The pipeline of sites to bring through to development already stands at c.£1.5bn, having been boosted by c.£500m via the £23m United House acquisition. Now that £50m of additional resource is available to the group, we can see this expanding even further as Telford looks to identify sites within the next 12 months and to commit the new capital fully within two years.
A still bullish market climate in Telford’s London: The media seeks to portray high risk in London residential but we still see great opportunity for developers in more affordable areas. Demand still heavily outweighs supply,
Widening the sales channel while also de-risking: Telford has opened a new sales channel: the institutionally funded private rental sector (IPRS). We see this becoming an important part of the London housing market, helping to bridge the supply gap; it is good for a developer to align with this new market segment, in our view.
Raising growth capital – old school but the right call: While the volume house builders are reducing capital by making large returns to shareholders, raising equity capital for expansion is a long-established sector trend. For Telford, we believe it is the right call for the Board to have made at this point in the market.
Still an under-valued stock: We have historically valued Telford on the same basis as the volume national builders but this increasingly feels wrong. We see unparalleled visibility, a clear long-term strategy, a solid focus on growth and, in our view, still highly favourable local market dynamics. We still see fair value here at 490p and believe that the stock is under-valued on both earnings and NAV bases in a sector that otherwise appears stretched. "