Persimmon’s £75m chief executive was too politically toxic to continue in post, but his £40m deputy will do just fine as the new boss. Welcome to the nuanced world of housebuilding in the age of help-to-buy, a place were Persimmon’s pre-tax profit of £1.1bn was not the most remarkable number in its 2018 results. That prize was shared by the 31% operating profit margin and the 53% return on capital employed, solid proof of how former chancellor George Osborne’s subsidy scheme has mostly benefited companies and their executives, not buyers of new homes.

The company’s new chief executive, David Jenkinson, can’t fail to be a cuter media performer than his tin-eared predecessor, Jeff Fairburn, but his own spoils from the ludicrous 2012 incentive scheme jar, to put it mildly, with the corporate chant that “Persimmon is changing”.

It’s nice that the housebuilder wants to address its substandard scores for customer service, but shouldn’t this thought have occurred when the executives, Jenkinson included, were racking up their millions? Similarly, it’s astonishing that it’s only now, after 150 senior managers have enjoyed their collective £500m windfall, that Persimmon wants all its lower-paid toilers to earn the full living wage.

Jenkinson will have to rub along on a £515,000 salary this year with no bonus or incentive top-up. The usual adornments will have to wait until 2020 and, presumably, will be recast in merely conventionally greedy form next time. He’ll survive.

So, of course, will Persimmon. If the new corporate do-gooding mantra feels a little windy – look, we’re even sponsoring Team GB for the Tokyo Olympics! - try the half-baked mutterings coming from government.

James Brokenshire, the housing minister, is said to be “increasingly concerned” by Persimmon and the company’s approach will be “a point of discussion” as help-to-buy contracts are reviewed. Whatever that means, it’s several bricks short of an actual policy, let alone a description of the grounds on which Persimmon could be singled out for punishment.

Brokenshire should concentrate on the shortcomings of help-to-buy itself. There may have been an argument for stimulating demand for new houses circa 2013, but not now. There is ample evidence that help-to-buy homes are sold at a premium, with the excess providing the rocket fuel for housebuilders’ profits margins. It’s time to unwind the market distortions, and safe to do so. Even if Persimmon’s return of capital were to halve, it would still has a strong financial incentive to keep building. Just call the whole thing off.

Metro’s basic blunder spells trouble for its CEO

“This placing certainly gives us a very, very strong capital base from which to continue to grow. I don’t foresee in the short-term to medium-term that we will need to be raising equity.”

So said Craig Donaldson, the chief executive of Metro Bank, last July, just after shareholders had been tapped for £303m to fund more growth. The share price then was £34.22. Now it is £13 and – surprise, surprise – Metro is back for another £350m bite. The “short-term” carries an imprecise meaning, but Donaldson cannot credibly claim any wriggle room. By any definition, eight months is an indecently brief span between fundraising calls.

The major event in the interim was Metro’s confession last month that it had been adding up its numbers the wrong way. The bank had placed about £900m of loans in the wrong risk bracket, which ranks as a very basic error for a lender. Correction meant the capital ratios were clobbered, thus the new need for more equity. Even the details of the cock-up, however, emerged in stages. Donaldson first suggested Metro found the mistake during an end-of-year review. Several days later the bank had to confirm that, actually, regulators at the Bank of England got there first.

The tangled tale damaged Donaldson’s credibility, it was argued here at the time, and the £350m cash-call takes it down several more notches. The chairman and founder, Vernon Hill, is fully supportive, apparently. It’s hard to understand why other shareholders should be.

Is Ocado wise to swap grocers midstream?

Terrific for Ocado, and full of potential for Marks & Spencer? The stock market’s snap judgment on the impending tie-up was generous. The former’s share price rose 12%, the latter’s 3%.

We will await the financial details of the deal to see if that view holds but, on the face of it, Ocado is taking a risk in dumping Waitrose. There are 700,000 Ocado customers and not all will regard M&S’s own-label food offer as a like-for-like substitution.

Waitrose will clearly lose via the re-arrangement and we may eventually learn why it didn’t negotiate harder, but it doesn’t necessarily imply a win-win for the new duo.