Building chiefs cash in on Help to Buy

. . . as Berkeley boss sells £166m of shares in 2.5 years

BOSSES at Persimmon, Barratt and Bellway have been handed shares worth more than £12m.

Persimmon chief executive David Jenkinson exercised share options worth £10m under the housebuilder’s controversial bonus scheme, while two top Barratt executives received stock worth nearly £1m, and two Bellway bosses were handed performance-linked shares worth £1.6m.

The bonanza came just a day after Tony Pidgley, the founder and chairman of rival builder Berkeley, sold shares worth £42m.

His deal took the amount he has made from selling stock in the past two and half years to £166m.

Last night critics condemned the share awards, which came just a week after figures showed the rate of house building in the UK had hit a threeyear low. Developers such as Persimmon, Barratt and Bellway – but less so Berkeley – have also raked in record profits off the back of Help to Buy, a taxpayer-funded scheme that lends cash to buyers. Reuben Young, a spokesman for housing campaign group Priced Out, said: ‘The scandal is these payouts are only made possible by Help to Buy, which has taken developer profits into the stratosphere by investing public money into rising house prices.’

Persimmon’s Jenkinson, 52, received 411,084 shares worth £9.7m at yesterday’s prices. After taxes he received 217,874 shares worth £5.2m and he is required to hold on to them for at last one year.

Barratt chief executive David Thomas received 64,182 shares worth £431,000 through a bonus plan and deputy chief Steven Boyes received 50,795 worth £341,000. Bellway awarded 30,667 performance-linked shares worth about £1m to boss Jason Honeyman and 17,823 shares worth about £600,000 to finance chief Keith Adey.

The final amount of shares they receive will depend on whether they hit performance targets.

Meanwhile, Pidgley (pictured with Boris Johnson during his stint as Mayor of London) has sold shares in the past six months that have made him £79.2m. That included

÷ NEILL Abrams, Ocado’s in-house lawyer, has raked in £10.2m from selling 750,000 shares in the online grocer for nearly £14 each. Abrams, a 54-year-old former barrister who was on the founding team of Ocado, saw his overall pay package jump 95pc to £1.1m last year.

1m he sold in July for £37.2m and a further 1m on Tuesday for £42m, cashing in on his company’s rising share price. The sales came after Pidgley previously sold a total of 2.5m shares for £86.8m in 2017 – taking the amount he has made since then to a staggering £166m.

The building firms declined to comment.