nic Budden
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Latest property news
Foxtons CEO cashes in shares worth £800,000
Payday for Nic Budden comes despite tanking profits at the company which he has blamed on 'historically low' sales transaction levels in London.
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Foxtons results reveal tanking profits but confident dismissal of online competitors
Foxtons has revealed its worse full-year results since 2013 including profits before tax which tanked by 65% year-on-year. Its Annual Report and Accounts for 2017 also reveal that revenue decreased by 11.4% and earnings per share by 67%, while its margin dropped to 12.8%, down from over 35% in 2013. That year its profits before tax were £38.9 million, but in 2017 were just £6.5 million. Despite its poor results, both its CEO Nic Budden and CFO Mark Berry received bonuses, although they were lower than in 2016. Budden (pictured, left) was paid a package worth £914,000 last year including a bonus of £218,000 while Berry was paid £490,000 including a bonus of £153,000. Foxtons results document blames the poor performance squarely on its sales operation, which Foxtons says has been battered by the sluggish property markets inside the M25/London area. Sales revenue fell by 23% year-on-year during 2017. This, it says, is largely due to a lack of confidence among buyers and vendors caused by the ongoing Brexit process. But Foxtons also says the 2016 changes to Stamp Duty continue to depress volumes. But unlike most of its competitors, Foxtons continues to focus on developing its own in-house online…
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Foxtons reports profits down by 43% last year as London market pain continues
Foxtons’ results for 2017 are out and the company says its group turnover, profits and both sales and lettings revenues were down year-on-year but that it has some “strategic initiatives” up its sleeves due to be revealed next week. The company’s profits took the hardest knock. They dropped from £24.6 million in 2016 to £15 million last year, or 43%, as sales within London’s multi-million pound streets remain quiet despite hopes that the exchange rate would persaude more foreigners to buy into the capital’s bricks and mortar. Revenues from its sales operation dropped by nearly 24% year-on-year from £55 million to £42 million, although the crash in volumes within the capital appears to have eased during the final three months of year. But the company says it expects the pain in London to continue. Unlike last week’s Countrywide results which saw disappointing figures for both sides of its core business, Foxtons’ lettings operation continues to deliver at least only moderate revenue reductions – down last year by just 3%. Struggling performance But, despite the weak business performance, CEO Nic Budden appears to be dodging City, investor and board calls for fresh leadership. The company blames its struggling performance on the…
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Foxtons results reveal lower revenues AGAIN, but share price rises
Revenues at London agent Foxtons are down again, its latest trading statement has revealed. Results for its third quarter of trading this year ending September 31st reveal that revenues were down by £2.4m or 6% to £35.1m year on year, a better performance that its previous results for the first six months of the year, during which profits plunged by £10m. But the company’s total revenues for the year-to-date were also down, from £106.3m in 2016 to £93.7m this year. It isn’t all bad news – the company says its lettings business has picked up during the third quarter of trading and only shrank by £400,000 to £22.5m. Most of the lost revenues were at its sales operation, which reduced from £12.3m to £10.3m year-on-year as London’s property market suffers as the carnage wreaked by the recent Stamp Duty changes for vendors and landlords continues. Revenues at its mortgage arm – Alexander Hall – were flat at £2.3m. “This was a resilient third quarter performance when set against the challenging conditions in the London property market,” says Foxtons CEO Nic Budden(pictured, left). “We have maintained our relentless focus on delivering a leading proposition for our customers and in our lettings…
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Why Foxtons’ results are even worse than its competitors
Proptech consultant James Dearsley (pictured, below) says Foxtons’ results revealed recently in its half-year results has been created by the legacy of its once might CRM system called BOS. The results, which were worse than many of its competitors within the struggling London property market, saw sales drop by a third. James says its IT system, created during the early noughties at a cost of £2 million, initially helped create Foxtons’ success by freeing up its talented but famously ruthless staff to concentrate on the sell, automating almost everything else years before most other competitor agents had developed anything similar. James, who used to work at Foxtons, says the company has “developed itself into a corner” by creating a system that no else uses or can plug into, and that while most other agents now use CRM systems that they can ‘plug and play’ the latest innovative products, Foxtons is left with an inward-looking bespoke system and left to play catch-up. A case in point is the lettings maintenance management software Fixflo which James’s company Proptech consult helped integrate into Connells’ and Countrywide’s systems, but which would struggle to be added to Foxtons’. “[This] leaves them at a competitive disadvantage…
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Foxtons reports profits down by 45% year-on-year
Foxtons has reported a dismal performance during 2016 including total group revenue down by 11% from £150m in 2015 to £133m, and profits for the year likely to be down by 45% year-on-year. Foxtons’ CEO Nic Budden (pictured) also warns that 2017 is likely to be equally painful for the company, saying that “should current levels of sales activity continue in the short term, it is likely that 2017 volumes will be below those in 2016”. The company’s trading statement released today blames the dramatic decreases in turnover and profits on significant drops in sales volumes as the market continues to be “subdued”. Its lettings revenues remained constant during the final three months of the year at £13m compared to the same period the year before, which Foxtons says it down to its “high levels of renewals despite lower levels of new tenant activity and some downward pressure on rents arising from increased stock”. “Despite a challenging year across the residential property markets, we have continued to make good progress in respect of our strategic initiatives, including building our presence in PRS and new homes, and leveraging our technology using data analytics and digital marketing to enhance our customer proposition,”…
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Who are the best paid CEOs in property?
In April this year it was revealed that Foxtons CEO Nic Budden had been awarded a 19% pay rise which is likely to boost his salary to £2.3 million for 2016, up from his 2015 salary of £856,000, making him one of the best paid CEOs in property. He is one of an elite group of business leaders in our industry who earn six and seven figure total pay packages and lead companies with thousands of employees from multi-agency group to the big portals. But except for Alison Platt of Countrywide and Alex Chesterman of Zoopla, this high-flying club of top executives is a largely anonymous and invisible bunch who rarely venture out into the public eye, and whose performances are rarely examined or discussed despite being responsible for the livelihoods of many thousands of property professionals. So how do they measure up – are their public limited companies doing well? 1. CEO: Mark Allan (until June), £2.4m Company: Unite Sector: Student accommodation Revenue: +10% Share price: -12% Profit: +260% 2. CEO: Nick McKittrick, £2.3m Company: Rightmove Sector: Portals Revenue: +25% Share price: +83% Underlying profit: +16% 3. CEO: Jeremy Helsby, £2.29m Company: Savills Sector: Sales and lettings…
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London’s tough sales market squeezes Foxtons revenues
Tough conditions in the London market have driven down sales revenues at Foxtons by over a third during the past three months, its latest trading update has revealed. Total revenues at the company for the third quarter of this year were £37.5 million, down by 13.7% from £43.5 million during the same period last year. It’s total for the first nine months of the year is also down, from £114.5 million to £106.3 million. Such a weak performance is largely down to it sales division, where revenues were down by nearly 34% to £12.2 million, while revenues from its lettings operations rose, but only by £200,000 to £22.8 million. CEO Nic Budden (pictured, left), who will earn £550,000 this year before bonuses and share incentives, said: “The long term fundamentals of the London property market remain very attractive and represent a huge opportunity for growth with nearly £3bn in total sales and lettings commissions on 2015 volumes. “We have built Foxtons to withstand sales market cycles with our lettings revenue comprising over half the business. We are pleased with the response we have seen to the strategic initiatives which we have implemented to grow our lettings business, and also the…
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