Housebuilders divide neatly into those that are shovelling cash back hand over fist to investors and those that are going for growth. Barratt Developments has put itself firmly in the first camp. This puts it at odds with Redrow, say, which indicated last week that it saw plenty more growth in the UK and no necessity to jack up dividend payments.
Barratt denies that this is any huge change of strategy, although the rate of increase in completions, up 30 per cent over the past three years, will slacken off a bit.
The extraordinary growth of the housing market, and the one-off stimulus from Help to Buy last summer, mean that a couple of significant targets were reached ahead of time, namely a return-on-capital figure