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Latest property news
Purplebricks share price slumps to near-record low
Investor confidence in the company is slipping away as instructions plummet and it struggles to find a way to reverse the slide.
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Latest property news
Countrywide stock hits all-time low after new shares issued
Countrywide's share price plummetted by another 10% yesterday after 140 billion new shares entered the London Stock Exchange.
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Latest property news
Countrywide share price crashes as £129m debt refinancing deal is revealed
Countrywide’s share price has crashed to an all-time low after it revealed plans earlier today of a multi-million-pound share issue to refinance its debt, and despite signs of improving business performance. Earlier this morning its share price dropped to 14p after opening this morning at 25p. Only three weeks ago it was trading at 55p a share and a year ago, £1.56p. The share collapse follows details of its plans to raise £129 million via two share offers, one for £111.4 million and a second for £28.6 million. This share placing must be approved by shareholders at a special meeting on the 28th August before it can proceed. But the company says if approved the cash raised will be used to reduce its current debts by 60%. The Capital Refinancing Plan is in part designed to improve its results by clearing its considerable loan interest payments off the balance sheet. Business turnaround? The announcement was accompanied by an upbeat summary of Countrywide’s ‘turnaround plan’. This reveals an improving sales pipeline which, although still down 9% year-on-year, is an improvement on six months ago when the pipeline was down by a quarter. Countrywide also says the number of properties it’s marketing…
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Purplebricks share price continues downward spiral despite Axel Springer deal
Yesterday’s announcement by Purplebricks that German publisher Axel Springer is to invest £125 million in the business has failed to impress the City, dealing in its shares over the past 24 hours suggest. Purplebricks share price slid by 10% yesterday following the announcement and this has continued today, with its share price dipping to £2.73p at one point this morning. This is an ongoing trend, though. The company has seen its share price lose a third of its value over the past four weeks and 45% of its value since it peaked in July last year at £5.13. One reason for the downturn can be laid at the door of the current worries over a looming trade war between the US and the UK, as well as a febrile atmosphere among investors around the world as the EU and Russia sabre rattle. Directors cash in But the fact that many of Purplebricks’ senior team including founding brothers Michael and Kenny Bruce have cashed in some of their shares in the Axel Springer deal have also been a source of concern for investors – who don’t like to see directors or key senior people cashing in so early in a company’s…
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Purplebricks gifts new CEO in UK stock options worth £400,000
Purplebricks has revealed that its recently-appointed CEO in the UK Lee Wainright has been given stock options worth £415,000 through the company’s employee share option scheme. Lee (pictured, below) has been given 100,000 shares in Purplebricks at an exercise price – i.e. the fixed sale value of each share – of £4.15p, although how long he will have to wait to cash them in is not made clear. Purplebricks is tight lipped about why Lee has been granted the stock options now, but risky start-up companies such as Purplebricks often use share options to make up for the higher salaries that senior executives might earn if they were working for longer-established, more profitable organisations. That, in Lee’s case, was Countrywide where he was Managing Director of Bairstow Eves and Mann London before joining Purplebricks 12 months ago, where he initially held the title of UK Operations Director. It is also likely that he has been given these golden handcuffs to soften the blow of what is a bone-rattling role. Only a few weeks after being appointed UK CEO, Lee endured a painful grilling when he appeared on a BBC Radio 5Live show that investigated some of its marketing practices. The…
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OnTheMarket shares finally exceed original AIM launch share price
If you’re an agent who holds OnTheMarket shares then it may be time to celebrate. The company’s share price has finally recovered and today exceeded its original offer price of £1.63p from ten days ago. Trading in OnTheMarket shares peaked at £1.70p late this afternoon, the highest the share price has reached to date. At launch the share price dropped to a low of £1.40p but has since been climbing slowly to today’s high, helped by an upbeat announcement on Friday that included details of its strategy to both target smaller agents and tie-in larger agent groups to long-term deals. “The more agents who join now, the more we believe all agents and property-seekers will benefit in terms of the increased property stock at OnTheMarket.com,” CEO Ian Springett said in Friday’s statement. “We are focused on reaching out to agent firms across the country which can see the disruptive appeal of our proposition of sustainable fair pricing from an agent-backed portal.” Excited Springett is currently refusing all interview requests, but has been busy doing the rounds at agent gatherings, including at agent Jackson-Stops’ annual conference, at which he said he was “excited by progress”. During today’s session on AIM nearly…
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Countrywide share price freefall continues valuing firm at just £200m
The Countrywide share price freefall continued yesterday plunging by 10.5% to 84.9p per share, an all-time low for the company (see graph, right). Its share price had rallied slightly in recent days following the departure of CEO Alison Platt, but investor confidence in the future of the company and the overall property market appears to be waning again despite Chairman Peter Long recently stating that he would stay on until the company’s problems had been sorted out, and the promotion of Paul Creffield to Group Operations Director. The sudden drop in shares is likely to be a result of major shareholders offloading their exposure to the company’s shares and recent figures from the Land Registry revealing a 21% drop in year-on-year property transactions during 2017. The most significant shareholders in Countrywide are Oaktree Capital with 33%, Brandes Investment Partners with 19%, Apollo Investors (10%), Harris Associates (7.6%). Investec Asset Management ( 6.2%) and Jupiter Asset Management (5.8%). Following the departure of Alison Platt, Peter Long’s salary was doubled from £180,000 to £360,000 as ‘golden handcuffs’ to incentivise the long-serving industry stalwart to remain with the company, while Platt’s severance deal is yet to be announced, although it likely to run…
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Is Alison Platt about to exit from Countrywide as share price dips under £1?
Rumours that the position of Countrywide CEO Alison Platt may be in jeopardy were circulating in the City after its share price hit a new all-time low of £0.98p during mid-day trading today. Shares in the company have been in freefall since a trading statement on Thursday warned that profits were likely to be lower than expected following a “disappointing” last quarter. That day its share price dropped 20% but has since fallen overall by a quarter as investor confidence in Countrywide crumbled after the trading update predicted its 2017 profits would be £65m, down by 22% from £83.5m during 2016, Last night Sky News reported that board members were in private discussions about the future of Alison Platt, who could be pushed out within days, and even if she does hang on, may struggle to survive until the full year results are published on the 8th March. These are likely to make grim reading, as the trading update suggested last week, and may push the company’s share price down past £1. If this were to happen then it would mark an extraordinary collapse. Countrywide’s share price has fallen from nearly £6 a share in September 2015 to £1.02 today…
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Latest property news
In a nutshell: the property share price freefall
If the share price of the UK’s residential stockmarket-listed corporates are the bellwether of the industry’s future health then estate agents should be battening down the hatches. Investors in London’s stock exchange clearly think Brexit, the recent Stamp Duty increases and last week’s letting fees ban are going to make selling or renting homes harder and less profitable in the coming months. Share prices have dropped alarmingly. Compared to a year ago when Brexit was still only a possibility, Countrywide’s share price is down by 52%, Foxtons by 37%, LSL Property Services by 33%, Belvoir Lettings by 15.7% and Savills by 13.9%. Even the industry’s digital superstars, so beloved of the City in recent years, have taken substantial hits including Purplebricks (-31%) and Rightmove (-11%) although Zoopla, whose model has helped its share price grow since August, is only down by half a percent as is Belvoir Lettings. Savills has also done better during the recent bloodbath which UBS analyst Heidi Richardson says is because the stockmarket knows only 9% of its sales come from selling homes in the UK. Purplebricks survived the lettings fees ban much better than its more traditional competitors after rushing out a statement that the…
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