Foxtons investors renew calls for estate agency to be sold

Major shareholders in Foxtons have renewed their calls for the estate agency to be sold to a private equity firm, saying it’s the only way the firm can move forward.

The comments have come from spokespeople at two of the agency’s major shareholders within a profile run by The Guardian on its recently-arrived CEO Guy Gittins.

Cory Bailey from 3G Capital and Django Davidson from Hosking Partners say selling the firm to a private equity firm – as Gittings previous employer Chestertons was in October last year – is the only way for Foxtons to access the cash to buy more competitors, and for current shareholders to get a better price for their stock.

Foxtons share price once stood at nearly £4 a share at their peak in 2014, are currently trading at 55p.

The article reveals that Foxtons big shareholders were instrumental in relieving former CEO Nic Budden of his job in May 2022 after years of poor results, but that they are still unhappy that Gittins, despite delivering improved performance, has yet to help raise the firm’s share price.

Gittins did not reveal whether he has a view on Foxtons being sold again – it was first sold to an investment firm in 2007 by founder Jon Hunt and then refloated on the London Stock Exchange in 2013 – but instead said: “We’re 100% focused on delivering the strategy that we set out, which is to deliver £25m to £30m of adjusted operating profit within the next three years compared with £14m last year”, he said.

Read The Guardian article in full.