The Australian boss of Purplebricks has exercised options to buy 40,000 shares which he then sold.
Ryan Dinsdale paid £1.29 per share and subsequently sold them for £3.65 each, making a profit of £94,400.
Purplebricks has also announced that options to subscribe for 1,117,347 shares have been exercised by certain employees. It did not name them.
The options exercised are a mix of those granted pre- and post-IPO, with a range of prices between £0.01 and £1.29 per share.
Purplebricks’ Australian business brought in £6.8m of revenue in the first half of the current financial year, chalking up an operating loss of £5.1m.
The firm said it now has 105 Local Property Experts in Australia, and that market share there is higher than the UK at the end of its first year.
Since launch in September 2016, Purplebricks reported that it has sold $1.1bn (Australian dollars) of property there.
On the London stock market, Purplebricks shares ended on Friday up about 4% after earlier falls.
It starts the week with shares at 369p, meaning that if the 1m-plus shares on which options have been taken out are cashed in, then staff could raise a Christmas bonus of the best part of £4m.
* The Sunday Times yesterday reported that Purplebricks founders Michael and Kenny Bruce are backing a start-up described as offering “a new type of theatre experience”.
Ellipsis Entertainment has raised £3m from investors including the Bruce brothers and Lord Alli, former chairman of online retailer Asos.
Ellipsis Entertainment says it is developing a method of “fusing augmented reality with the sets and actors of traditional theatre” and that it will deliver its first “experience” in March.
The report said: “Demand for experiences such as those promised by Ellipsis is being driven by younger consumers, who appear to prioritise one-off events over owning assets such as cars and houses.”
And no, EYE does not understand (as we can no longer, alas, be described as “younger consumers”) what this means.
But is it a portent of things to come when the far-sighted founders of Purplebricks support a business which promotes “events” over assets such as houses?
Are houses really so “yesterday”? Do please tell us.
Comments (21)
If anyone from Admin sees this, please can you respond to my email about being unable to subscribe (but able to post!)? All I receive is the daily advert, which is the opposite of ideal…
The only “augmented reality ” I can see is the PB share price !
What ever the rights or wrongs of this are, as this is the Australian firm it does not really effect us here. But, how much confidence as someone who has invested savings into PB shares would I have if I see the senior management opting for share options and immediately selling them?
This COULD suggest, that the senior management are not looking at their shares as a long term hold. This COULD mean that in the short to medium term, they see the current share price as being near the top, so a good idea to take the money out, rather than wait for the shares to continue to rise.
IF I were thinking of investing in a company, I would be more confident when I knew the management were holding on to their shares which came to them at a below current market price, rather than immediately selling them and crystallising a short term profit. I would ask myself whether that management had long term faith in the future of their company.
Just my personal opinion, which I would have on any business where these sorts of actions were taking place.
Now Dom
I’ll get back to my hols. Remembering that I can post anywhere I like, despite being a High Street Agent
And I don’t charge for failure, unlike Purplebricks!
Mind you, thinking about it a little further…. the Purple Management are only being rewarded for failure….. just like their upfront business model!
Like the £3.6 million profit in the UK this year?
Or expanding to two overseas markets?
Or being the largest agent in the UK now?
Ask the Purple Clients who paid upfront for failure Dom… it’s their 3.6Million!
Give it back!!! You haven’t EARNED it!
:-)))))
Dictionary definition of an estate agent:
A person whose job involves selling and renting out buildings and land for clients.
What was it, something like 54% of houses listed sold it was estimated?
So of that £3.6 million, £1,656,000 was paid by clients who never sold.
No, they’re not the largest agent, they are not a proper estate agent. They don’t qualify.
It inspires confidence doesn’t it?
Senior Purplebricks people taking share options and then cashing in!
Those duped consumers, if only they knew how empty that Purple Pouch actually is!
It inspires confidence that our trusted high street agents spend so much of their time whining and bitch##g on here about their competition.
dom?
play nice or you’ll be put on the Purple Naughty Step!
I know this share option is no doubt legal, but to me it sounds that employees with inside information are using loopholes to make a quick buck on a young internet company that is not making profit. I think the key point here is that these the same senior employees who are the ones that contol the finances and statements being made to the city in order to influence share value. Why did Ryan Dinsdale not just keep a hold of the shares? Is this a loophole or scam that Panarama should be investigating ?
This is probably the worst post I have ever read on here.
The guy wants to cash in his share option he has every right to do so.
Nice Christmas bonus for Ryan, it may well be that as an employee he has done what has been asked and has been rewarded by his management?
So irrespective on the PB argument maybe an agent has done well and has been handsomely rewarded.
Could this ‘augmented reality’ technology be a precursor to property tours?
Is it a total waste of time actually showing someone a property when you have already been paid?
Will this theatre experience be a disruptor, will the “experience” be based around the concept of paying upfront before you know what sort of experience you are going to have, and then not getting any sort of refund should the “experience” not happen
Hang on my sides are aching.
Wasnt meant to be funny, just ironic.
The rest of us got it Arthur. But you have sinned against the dom by debasing the object of his passion, and he won’t stand for that.
I think that going into a business that involves “reality” is a brilliant idea.