Taxpayer cash fuels dividend

BARRATT SHARES HELP-TO-BUY GAINS

A BIG winner from a taxpayer-backed mortgage scheme has announced a new £175million windfall for shareholders.

More than a third of homes sold by Barratt in the second half of 2019 were part-financed by the Help to Buy scheme.

The firm, Britain’s biggest housebuilder, already planned to hand back £175m to its shareholders via a special dividend to be paid this November.

But yesterday Barratt announced they will get another £175m in November 2021 too.

Help to Buy was launched by the Tories in 2013 to help those with small deposits save up for a property.

But critics claim it has been used by welloff buyers to get a cheap loan, and drove up property prices.

One reason for the special dividends for investors is because Barratt is sitting on what chief executive David Thomas called a “substantial” £433m of cash. Thomas’s pay and perks package soared from £2.7m to £3.6m last year. Barratt’s share price increased more than 2% yesterday to a record high. It came as the company announced that the 8,314 homes it built in the second half of 2019 was the highest for 12 years. Meanwhile, revenues rose 6.3% to nearly £2.3bn and profits saw a 3.7% increase to £423m.

David Madden, an analyst at City broker CMC Markets, said: “The company has benefited greatly from the Help to Buy scheme, and it is banking on further assistance from Westminster, especially on the back of the Tory party win last year.”

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