Housebuilders lift FTSE after cladding reports

The builders have been in the doldrums for months, one analyst said.

Many have been stuck with unsafe cladding on their buildings that was highlighted by the Grenfell disaster. (Aaron Chown/PA) (PA Wire)

It was a flurry of trading in the UK’s housebuilders that helped London’s top index keep its head above water on Monday as trading started for the week.

Reports have emerged that the Government has dropped its demand that housebuilders cough up money to help leaseholders trapped with unsafe cladding on their buildings.

The news that the companies might not have to contribute towards the £4 billion remediation fund saw traders keen to pile into Barratt Developments, Persimmon, Berkeley and Taylor Wimpey.

Online real estate portal Rightmove also got a bump on the day.

“Housebuilders have been in the doldrums since the start of the year despite a supercharged housing market as investors priced in the cost of making repairs,” said AJ Bell financial analyst Danni Hewson.

“The deal on the table would require companies to deal with issues on any medium rise building they’ve built over the last thirty years, but additional funding talks would be put off until later in the year.

“The long running dispute about who should foot the bill to deal with fire safety issues has been contentious and housebuilders will need to act quickly to show they’re serious about making things right.”

By the end of the day, the FTSE 100, London’s top index, had gained 21.02 points, a 0.3% rise which landed the index at 7,558.92.

It put the FTSE a little behind its European peers – Germany’s Dax was up 0.6%, while the Cac 40 in Paris rose 0.9%.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 had gained 0.5%, while the Dow Jones was up 0.1% by the time markets were closing in London.

Ms Hewson said: “Over on Wall Street it’s been a day to tweet about and one man who certainly knows the value of a cunningly crafted tweet is Elon Musk.

“The news that the Tesla boss has snapped up a 9.2% stake in the company didn’t raise eyebrows, only speculation about his next steps and Twitter’s share price.”

Oil prices rose with Brent crude clocking in at 107.97 dollars per barrel, a 3.4% increase. On currency markets the pound could buy 1.3119 dollars, a small rise, or 1.1927 euros, slightly below the day before.

In company news, Ted Baker saw its shares soar by 14.4% after the company put itself up for sale.

After a third takeover attempt by a US private equity giant and another bid from an unnamed firm, Ted Baker said that it would invite bids.

Elsewhere, Ryanair investors were clearly expecting worse as its shares rose by 1% even though the airline said it would post a loss of at least 350 million euros (£294 million) this year.

The number of passengers travelling on Ryanair’s flights has “recovered strongly,” the airline said, but the figure is still far below where it was before Covid-19 hit.

The business had previously told markets to expect a loss of between 250 million euros (£210 million) and 450 million euros (£378 million).

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Aveva, up 98p to 2,533p, Flutter Entertainment, up 344p to 9,090p, JD Sports, up 5.3p to 156.05p, Rightmove, up 22p to 657p, and Hargreaves Lansdown, up 33.3p to 336.6p.

The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were Standard Chartered, down 9p to 501.2p, Rio Tinto, down 93p to 6,132p, Aviva, down 7p to 438p, M&G, down 3p to 219.7p, and Natwest Group, down 3p to 215.2p.