eProp Services plc, the company which includes easyProperty, Fine & Country and the Guild, chalked  up a loss of £2.65m last year – the 12 months to the end of December 2017.

In an  RNS yesterday, the company describes the loss as a “significant improvement over previous filed (eProp only) financial results”.

These had shown a loss of £11.4m for the online brand, licensed in the UK and Europe initially to Robert Ellice by easy founder Sir Stelios Hagi-Ioannou.

Yesterday’s eProp statement lists the “successful acquisition of GPEA” – the previous parent company of the Guild and Fine & Country – as a financial highlight after the ‘merger’ with easyProperty stemmed the latter’s losses.

In March last year, eProp Services – which at that time apparently consisted of only easyProperty – posted its losses of some £11m on turnover of under £1m in the year to the end of September 2016.

GPEA went on to purchase easyProperty, in a deal backed by previously existing investor Toscafund, and now licenses the brand through its Guild, and Fine & Country agents.

Yesterday’s eProp Services statement said that the overall group results include an additional deemed cost of £10.3m, relating “to the financial statements being prepared on a reverse acquisition basis”.

The announcement said that the newly enlarged group had £12.5m turnover last year.

It said that it had cut overheads by 19.4% through cost control.

eProp Services also announced yesterday that it has bought the remaining stake in its technology subsidiary, Property Logic.

CEO Jon Cooke said that the group was “well positioned to take advantage of consolidation” in the proptech sector, and would continue to investigate further mergers and acquisitions opportunities.

eProp Services chairman Mark Phillips said: “We are delighted to confirm that the merger of eProp and GPEA has been successfully completed, and eProp Services plc has transformed itself into a multi-brand tech-enabled provider offering a wide range of services, both digital and traditional to the UK and international real estate agent sector.

“We have seen progress in all trading divisions both UK and internationally, and we have reduced our cash outflow by prudent cost management and expect to be cash positive by the end of 2018.”

RNS information is normally released because companies are plcs. However, eProp is not a publicly listed company – although it had said it might float, in the first quarter of this year. EYE asked about this.

Cooke replied: “No it has not floated . We report as if we are, as we have a large shareholder base

“I believe we use a different RNS process to reflect this.”

The full RNS released yesterday is here:

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/other/13806270.html

Online agent easyProperty set to seek more funding as it posts losses of almost £11m