Despite strong evidence underlining the robustness of the the British housing market, investors still remain largely convinced by the profits picture over at construction giants like Bellway (LSE: BWY).
And this point is borne out by the company’s ultra-low valuations — Bellway changes hands on P/E ratios of just 7.5 times and 7.2 times for the years to July 2017 and 2018 respectively.
City brokers, while expecting some moderation in UK house prices as the country prepares for Brexit, certainly don’t expect the sector to fall off a cliff, given the continuing housing shortage. Indeed, Bellway, for one, is anticipated to enjoy earnings growth of 5% this year and 4% in fiscal 2018.
And these bubbly forecasts are expected to keep driving dividends higher. Last year’s 108p per share reward is expected to rise to 110.6p in 2017, and again to 119.4p next year.
Consequently Bellway sports tasty yields of 4.5% and 4.8% for this year and next.
Hit the floor
Floorcovering manufacturer Headlam (LSE: HEAD) also appears to be grossly underestimated by stock pickers at the present time.
While earnings growth is anticipated to decelerate in the medium term — expansion of 5% is chalked in for 2017, compared with predicted growth of 16% for last year — Headlam still deals on a very reasonable P/E ratio of 13.3 times.
Headlam’s share price leapt last week, after it advised that it “continued to experience better than anticipated trading in the latter part of the important fourth quarter” following its December update. As a result results for the full year are expected to beat market expectations.
And I believe Headlam should keep delivering knockout results as UK sales take off and demand from Continental Europe steadily recovers.
This bodes extremely well for dividends, naturally, a view that is also shared by the number crunchers. Headlam is expected to raise an estimated 28.8p per share payout for last year to 31.7p this year. This figure creates a bumper 6.1% yield.
Comms corker
A sterling earnings picture also bodes well for shareholder rewards over at Communisis (LSE: CMS).
Investor appetite for the marketing mammoth has ignited more recently, the stock touching levels not seen since last April following last week’s encouraging trading update, Communisis advising that trading during 2016 had “ended in line with expectations.”
But current valuations suggest that fresh share price strength is warranted. Expected earnings growth of 6% this year alone throws up a P/E ratio of 7.3 times. And Communisis is anticipated to raise a forecast 2.41p per share dividend for 2016 to 2.6p this year, driving the yield to a lip-smacking 5.8%.
I believe Communisis — like Bellway and Headlam — is a bargain for both growth and income chasers at recent prices.
