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LATEST: Purplebricks revenues and profits slump by a quarter

The troubled agency blames a failed marketing plan and the housing market for the poor results.

David Callaghan

Purplebricks has reported a drop of 23% in revenues down to £70 million, and a profit fall of 27% to 42.1 million.

The struggling agency also suffered an EBITDA loss of £8.8 million.

helena marstonHelena Marston, company CEO, (pictured) says: “Last year’s financial performance was significantly impacted by the challenges resulting from the implementation of our new operating model and investment in marketing that did not deliver the expected results, alongside a housing market which played against us.

“Nevertheless, our performance was not good enough.

“We have already taken decisive action. We have completed a substantial cost-reduction programme, re-trained all our field agents to raise standards and improve conversion, increased our prices and removed the Money Back Guarantee, adopted a more targeted sales and marketing plan, and dramatically overhauled our processes and procedures,” she adds.

Huge potential

“We are also assessing additional revenue streams including our new mortgage proposition which we expect to launch by the end of this financial year.

“I am convinced that the potential for Purplebricks is huge. We have a proposition which is more relevant and valuable for our customers, as well as a brand which is the best known in the industry. I’m confident that the actions we are taking this year will set us on a clear path towards a return to sustainable, profitable growth.”

The firm’s share price fell to 14.34p last month, its second lowest level ever, and is today even lower at 14.10p. In May it revealed instructions were down 31% year-on-year.

A money back guarantee was scrapped in July and fees raised, with vendors selling a property outside London now paying a standard fixed-charge of £1,199 and £1,999 in the capital.

August 2, 2022

3 comments

  1. I should have gone with my instincts and put my money where my mouth is .I should have placed a bet on this out come ! You can Improve it but you can’t reinvent the wheel ! I heard one of my sales managers refer to himself as a LPE he asked me Why I was laughing ? I explained . I haven’t heard him mention that term again .

  2. If Purplebricks cash at bank is now £43M – they burnt through £30.8M in a year, even though they had £70M cashflow into the business at the same time.

    With a £3M plus liability and a possible ‘class action’ to fight regarding PAYE status of self employed LPE’s, which could be £10M plus -Purplebricks will possibly need more ‘funding’ to keep going.

    With a shareprice of 14p these results may also see them dip even more – will there be a bold move by someone to do something with this ailing enterprise – August is going to be a long month.

    Unluckily they have an in-experienced CEO in place and a slew of problems, not least that in the best housing market for two decades, by the numbers of completions, Purplebricks actually managed to go backwards.

    I do not think the new CEO has the luxury of having 12 months to turn this Behemoth around, it may well be shareholders activity and pressure from parties who see their opportunity may create fireworks long before Christmas.

  3. ‘alongside a housing market that played against us?’

    If you couldn’t make a success of the bounce-back market over the last 12 months then you should be really concerned for the next 12 months.

    Purple Bricks as a model works. It’s the individuals and service levels on the front line which are disjointed and from what I can see this frustrates the public. Long way back for PB

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