Countrywide and Zoopla both issued news to the City today. Countrywide announced that the £19m it raised from selling almost half its shares in Zoopla will be returned to shareholders by way of a share buy-back programme.
Countrywide also announced operating profits were down 37% – down from £84.9m in 2014, to £53.8m last year.
Zoopla said it had a “solid” start to the financial year, reporting on the period October 1 to the end of January.
In contrast, Countrywide reported a “mixed performance” in its preliminary full year results to the end of December.
While Countrywide’s total revenue was up 4% compared with 2014, to stand at £733.7m, both operating and pre-tax profits were hit, with the latter slipping 16%, down from £102.5m to £85.8m.
There was a decline in estate agency and lettings profitability, resulting in earnings before costs (EBITDA) reducing 7% to £113m. Countrywide described the sales market as “challenging” last year, saying the “pace of change created some disruption in estate agency”.
The group exchanged on a total of 67,402 house sales, down from 73,450 the year before. In London, it sold 11,819 homes, down 11% from the figure of 13,338 in 2014.
It grew the number of rental properties under management from 56,204 to 60,272.
Grenville Turner, the outgoing chairman at Countrywide, said: “2015 was a significantly tougher year both for the market and Countrywide.”
He steps down on April 27, to be succeeded by Peter Long.
Turner added that he wished the Countrywide board the very best “as it delivers its customer centric strategy”.
Alison Platt, chief executive, added: “2015 was a challenging year but we also made strong progress in creating solid foundations for the business to grow as planned in the coming few years.
“A tougher sales market coupled with our significant change agenda challenged us in maintaining our share of sales outside of London.
“However, the importance of the breadth of our portfolio through such a diversified business as ours was underlined by the market beating performance delivered in financial services, commercial and surveying.
“I am confident that the pace that we delivered our change agenda ensures we enter 2016 in a stronger position to regain market share and build the business further.”
Meanwhile, Zoopla this morning reported that it attracted over 47m average monthly visits to its websites and mobile apps between October and the end of January, and a record audience of over 58m visits in January.
It also grew the number of agents listing with it, by 261 net new partners, taking the total number to 16,672 at the end of the period. It reported that January marked the ninth consecutive month of growth in the number of UK agency partners to 12,841 at the end of the period.
The update said there was also strong activity in its comparison services division, and that it had launched two new uSwitch TV ad campaigns.
The updated concluded: “Management remains comfortable with financial year 2016 market expectations for the Group and we look forward to updating the market further at our half year results on 25 May 2016.”
Alex Chesterman, founder and CEO of Zoopla, said: “I am pleased with the Group’s solid start to the financial year. In property services we have now seen nine consecutive months of partner growth and experienced record levels of traffic in January.
“Comparison Services has performed particularly well as we continue to help consumers save money off their household bills.
“Our recently announced investments and strategic partnerships with some of the most-promising players in the PropTech space reaffirm our commitment to leading innovation and will serve to further strengthen our proposition.”
Zoopla holds its AGM this morning.
Dear, dear. Profits down 37%. I’d give Ms Platt about 6 months before she goes out the door. And about 6 months before shareholders realise that agency isn’t ‘Retail’ and that to be successful it needs to be run by people who actually understand agency.
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…and indeed that understand what truly represents the future of the industry.
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Morning Russell, isnt it about time you started asking for some more crowd funding?
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Is it because of tough market conditions or are they just terrible at estate agency?!
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I’m sorry, Mr Quirk – your last words to me before you spat your oversize dummy out of the pram were
“I don’t read comments on EYE”
Someone must have read them for you, I guess.
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Agency should be more like retail.
Most agents only show a taster of whats available around them. Imagine if supermarkets only had a few coffee choices on the shelf rather than dozens.
You can’t sell what you don’t have AgencyInsider
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“Imagine if supermarkets only had a few coffee choices on the shelf rather than dozens.”
Oh, dear.
The corporatesque ethos here being chuck as many jars on the shelf as possible in the hope that people will buy some of them.
Sorry, Mr Mealham. My vendors employ ME to help THEM sell THEIR HOMES.
I don’t deal in coffee… beans… or any such consumable item.
I don’t stack shelves for a living.
If that is what you advocate and how you advocate it be done then you are in the wrong industry.
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Then if you dont reach all local buyers (ie placing your props with other local agents) to reach all local buyers. HOW can you reach all to achieve the best deal for your clients.
Equally if you dont have what buyers want all the time. Do you offer them what they dont want?
The supermarket and coffee scenario is simply an example of giving customers more choice and more reach.
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Okay…
So NONE of us are doing the job right. You’ve said it yourself. NONE of us are currently doing ‘enough’.
In order to reach EVERY potential buyer, EVERY potential tenant, in order to demonstrate irrefutable evidence that they “reach all to achieve the best deal for your clients”, every agent surely must list EVERY ONE of their properties
with EVERY OTHER AGENT
on EVERY WEBSITE
in EVERY NEWSPAPER MAGAZINE and COMIC, EVERY DAY
on EVERY TV AND RADIO channel
on the BACK OF EVERY BUS
on EVERY ADVERTISING HOARDING
and of course on EVERY SHOP/SUPERMARKET NOTICEBOARD
ON THE PLANET
until Sold or Let – or run the risk of the EU smacking our handies.
I’m sure I will read all about it here on EYE when it becomes an EU Directive. Until then…
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The rot set in under Grenville with an exodus of the talent orchestrated by Bob and his cronies.
1st meeting from Grenville to all of the MDs and FSDs and he had to go to the stock exchange? Really or was he just social climbing. If you work out the unit exchanges to office numbers and it,s woeful. Poor Ms Platt and company have a tough time ahead trying to get the defibrillator on a wriggling patient. Shame really, I enjoyed 12 good years as an FSD but witnessed yes men out of their depth and i cant help feeling sorry for the rank and file who are left picking up the pieces
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Having worked for Black Horse and Bradford & Bingley when accountants took over from Estate Agents I can see the same pattern at Countrywide. We had area directors thrust upon us who had never listed or sold houses which proved to be a recipe for disaster and ultimately to the sale of B&B to Countrywide.
I never worked for Countrywide but know that Bob Scarff was an estate agent who knew how to sell property and knew the ‘ups and downs’ of the business. At least when the going got tough he knew how to motivate his people based on his experience and was respected because of it.
Let the retailers go back to selling frocks and socks and leave estate agency to those that know!
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I’m just surprised no-one has so far pointed their rickety finger and blamed OTM for Countrywide’s troubles.
The usual suspects aren’t normally this slow to miss a trick…
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