Purplebricks Group final death throes revealed including 0.6p share offer
Directors of former high-flying hybrid agency group have suggested remaining shareholders accept the offer to distribute the rumoured £5.5 million left in the firm.
The unlucky group of investors who still hold Purplebricks Group shares have this week been urged to approve the final stage of the firms demise as its directors recommend it goes into voluntary liquidation.
Although the vast majority of the firm’s assets inclduing the brand were sold to Strike earlier this year for £1 including its liabilities, there is enough money and other assets left to pay shareholders a jaw-dropping 0.6p per share, thought to be some £5.5 million.
This offer compares to the £5 the shares were valued at each when the estate agency was at the peak of its success and investors scrabbled to buy its stock.
The liquidation is of Bricks Newco Ltd, which is the new name of the Bruce brothers’ once mighty Purplebricks Group PLC, which spent millions on TV advertising including ads that bad-mouthed traditional agents for their ‘commisery’ and directly and indirectly employing hundreds of sales and letting agents.
Wound down
Bricks Newco’s remaining directors, who are both restructuring specialists, have now published a document saying: “Since completion of the sale, the company has wound down operations and is now ready to enter into Members’ Voluntary Liquidation, through which it is expected that the appointed Liquidators will distribute net cash to Shareholders, after settlement of any agreed creditor claims and the costs of the liquidation.”
The document reveals that the liquidation of Bricks Newco has cost £220,000. Shareholders must now vote on the recommended distribution of the remaining assets and cash as the dividend.
The firm’s most likely final General Meeting is to take place today at the offices of PricewaterhouseCoopers at 7 More London Riverside, London, SE1 2RT. Read the offer letting in full.
The point is John that in 1973 we did not have cloud computing which took off in 2004, we did not have for another 27 years A digital Ads listing service replacing real print for agents – Rightmove, and it was 19 years before Amazon a $19.4 trn market cap business that sells and delivers things digitally existed.
Purplebricks flaw was not that it was not wanted (by the 10% of vendors who like DIY or like to gamble) but that its technology was not at all advanced, to give an example the amount of cost of the technology that exists in a typical Amazon distribution hub runs into the multi-millions, result – smiling carboard boxes arriving daily via annoying vans in my and everyone’s street.
Maybe the new strategic investor/owner who has a £3Bn war chest will use some of it to tap up those who have the very best in class in tech, that can present a joined up and re-imagined model of the transfer of title of properties, monetising every micro stage. Probably though it will just eat multi-miions of capital and change ownership or be eclipsed by another contender.
Just as Rightmove found – failure to evolve leaves you vulnerable to a bigger contender entering the ring, in this case CoStar Group, all of a sudden the whole landscape can change in a few months.
Ever since I sold my first house in 1973 there have literally been hundreds of cheap Jack, ‘we’ll do it for far less’ outfits that have sprung up, made some noise & then quickly faded away. Usually started by amateurs who always think they can buck the trend, the ‘Kings New Clothes’ analogy always applies. Just because Michael & Kenny Bruce did it by raising lots more money for deceptive promotion doesn’t mean the concept wasn’t, as always, glaringly flawed. You have to reluctantly admire them for getting out at the peak before the bubble inevitably burst. As the dust settles on this sad pile of broken Bricks, you can guarantee another chancer is, as I write, concocting some other ‘revolutionary plan’ to flog property on the cheap & break a system that has worked for centuries. My advice to them if they’re reading this is, don’t waste your time & money, stick with your market stall!