Countrywide shares have another bruising day on stock market

Countrywide shares start today at another all-time low, 10.7p, after sliding 4.5% yesterday. The fall came after a steadier performance on Tuesday, when shares rose slightly.

According to the London Stock Exchange, the company’s market valuation – which applies to the London listed element – is now £183.4m.

Yesterday also proved a dramatic day on the stock market for OnTheMarket.

Its shares leapt on the announcement it made at 2pm that it has partnered with Facebook to have rental properties listed on the Marketplace section of the social media site. The shares shot up to 151p from about 136p.

However, the shares quickly came back down in the following 45 minutes, although recovering slightly to finish the day 3.3% up overall at 141.5p.

Meanwhile Hunters this morning announced ‘robust’ interim half year results for the six months to the end of June. It said that given the market challenges, it was “delighted” with the results.

Network income edged up 2% compared with the same period last year, to £17.6m, with head office revenue staying the same, at £6.7m. Average revenue per branch was £88,000 in the first six months of this year. Pre-tax profits for Hunters was £263,000, up from £191,000.

Hunters opened a total of eight new branches in the period and  now has a total of 203 outlets in its network, of which 192 are franchised – a drop of three franchised outlets  on the first six months of last year. Six existing businesses rebranded to Hunters.

Hunters said it remains confident that the second half of this year will outperform the first, and that it should exceed 2017’s full-year performance, despite completed sales for the market as a whole dropping 9%.

Chief executive Glynis Frew said: “Our view is that the challenging market is unlikely to improve in the foreseeable future, but our intention is to continue the industry’s consolidation.  The continuing work and support displayed by our staff and the franchise network is a great credit to the group.”

Chairman Kevin Hollinrake said that good quality independents were seeing the benefit of joining Hunters, “evidenced by the number and calibre of enquiries we are receiving”.

Hunters declared an interim dividend of 0.8p per share.

x

Email the story to a friend!



4 Comments

  1. fluter

    “with head office revenue staying the same, at £6.7m. Average revenue per branch was £88,000 in the first six months of this year. Pre-tax profits for Hunters was £263,000, up from £191,000”. So Head Office revenue £6.7m and pre-tax profits for the whole company £263,000, equivalent to 3.92%. Am I reading this right? If so these are some serious HO costs!

    Report
  2. jeremy1960

    £88,000 per branch in 6 months! Unless they all have extremely low overheads how are they making any money?? In this area that probably equates to less than 1 sale a week every week of the year which cannot be sustainable.

    Report
    1. smile please

      The running costs are lower, The portals from what i understand are a tenth of what you and i pay.

      Report
  3. Dezza25

    Pre-tax for Hunters was £263k? For the whole company? Am I reading this right.

    Report
X

You must be logged in to report this comment!

Comments are closed.

Thank you for signing up to our newsletter, we have sent you an email asking you to confirm your subscription. Additionally if you would like to create a free EYE account which allows you to comment on news stories and manage your email subscriptions please enter a password below.