Home improvement chain Wickes Group (LSE: WIX) probably isn’t the first name that springs to mind when looking for a top FTSE income share. But it caught my eye in September.
I was looking for shares that I thought might benefit from the new Labour government, in particular its plans to get Britain building again, by bulldozing through proposals to build 1.5m new homes in five years.
I’ve been doing a bit of doer-upping myself, and where did all my tradesmen go? Wickes.
A desirable FTSE stock with a well-appointed yield
While I never believed Labour would build the equivalent of 300,000 homes a year – something we haven’t done since the 1950s – I thought it showed willing. So I bought Wickes shares on 13 September only to see them fall within days.
So far, I’m down 13.11%, but other investors will be happier as the Wickes share price is up 22.89% over 12 months.
I buy stocks with a long-term view, so I’ll take this short-term dip on the chin. My Wickes shares have been falling for the same reason that my Taylor Wimpey shares are falling.
Hopes for a string of interest rate cuts next year have faded with the Bank of England warning Labour’s Budget may be inflationary. So too Donald Trump’s presidency. This will squeeze homeowners, property buyers and consumers, which means my tradesmen won’t spend as much time at Wickes.
The Budget has hit Wickes on a second front. Chancellor Rachel Reeves upped the national insurance rate on employers from 13.8% to 15%, cut the NI wages threshold from £9,100 a year to £5,000, and increased the minimum wage by 6.7%.
Wickes employs more than 8,000 across 233 stores, which isn’t as many as I expected. But higher staff costs will squeeze a business that works to low margins of just 4%.
Wickes shares would be lifted by falling interest rates
The board issued its Q3 trading update on 22 October confirming full-year profit outlook remains unchanged, boosted by falling costs. That was issued before the Budget on 30 October though.
While retail revenues climbed 2.2% to £945.3m in the nine months to 28 September, design and installation revenues fell 14.1% to £245.9m as shoppers held back from spending larger sums on bathrooms and kitchens. Total group revenues were down 1.6% to £1.19bn.
Building is a seasonal business. In Q3, Wickes benefitted from customers catching up on outdoor projects delayed by the wet spring and early summer, but it expects this pent-up demand to subside in Q4.
The eight analysts offering one-year share price forecasts for Wickes have set a median target of 176.6p. If correct, that’s growth of 15.36% from today.
The trailing yield is now 7.12% with cover a little thin at 1.4. The board has held the dividend per share at 10.9p for three years now, which isn’t ideal either.
The shares look cheap trading at 10.1 times trailing earnings but I won’t buy more today. I’ll sit tight and look forward to my next dividend, and hope we’re all wrong about interest rates.
