The property industry has a new PLC following the admission of RentGuarantor to the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM), the first to be listed since the heady days of Purplebricks’ entrance in 2014.

RentGuarantor CEO Paul Foy (main image, centre) spoke to The Negotiator exclusively on the morning of the launch on Friday to explain why he decided to go for a public listing and how Labour’s renting reforms will, when enacted, present a considerable opportunity for services like his when ‘rent in advance’ is banned.

“It is no accident that we have launched on AIM and the Renters’ Rights Bill is about to go live,” he says.

“These renting reforms are going to be seismic in what it does for the industry and we’ve taken very seriously our ability to cope with the demand [that the legislation is likely to drive] and we’re investing in AI technology to achieve that.

“We can onboard people in four hours at the moment, but we’re aiming to bring that down to four minutes within the next six months.”

He is gambling, fairly safely, that tenants faced with landlords looking to manage their financial risk will turn to services like RentGuarator in increasing numbers, and that many landlords and letting agents will suggest they do so as tenants are given much greater security of tenure and other renting rights in the Bill.

Marketing push

Foy says the money raised by the AIM listing will be used over the next 36 months to pay for a significant marketing push that he expects will make RentGuarantor the ‘go to’ service of its kind within the housing sector and, during the launch, the company played several TV adverts plugging its benefits.

“I myself have been a landlord for over 20 years so I understand what landlords need and have also felt the pain of tenants, and therefore understand what they need,” he says.

“It’s been a journey but we’ve been working hard over ten years to build a business that offers the sector multiple products including a rent guarantor service.

“The ethos of the business is that we step into the shoes of a parent [who is not able to guarantee their child’s rent payments] and do that duty in the way they would want us to.

“For example, a shared house with four or five students seeking to rent it is usually let ‘jointly and severally’ but no parent wants to guarantee all the tenants’ rent – just their son or daughter. So we take over and separate their child out from the AST and invariably when one tenant does that, the rest follow.

Disputes

“Also, landlords like us because our customer is the tenant not them so it the tenant who pays for it.
And the landlord doesn’t have to get involved in disputes or affordability/referencing, can easily see our terms and conditions and are reassured because their cashflow is protected during the life of the tenancy is protected up to three years.”

The firm’s service is underwritten by insurance to provide tenants, landlords and letting agents with “reassurance and peace of mind”, but is not an insurance policy product.

After withdrawing on Friday from the more specialist Aquis Stock Exchange Growth Market the firm then listed on AIM at 32.5p per share later rising to 35p, giving it a market capitalisation of £43.65 million.

The company reported a 72% rise in revenue and a 50% increase in tenant contracts plus a 14% rise in average contract price last year.