Purplebricks says it has made a good start to 2021 supported by a buoyant housing market.
Purplebricks said the market had recovered its recovery into 2021, supported by the government’s holiday for stamp duty on property purchases.
Total instructions increased by 12% to 60,238, up from 53,680 a year ago, with instructions in the second half performing ahead of market expectations.
The company says that it claimed a total of £1m under the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme initiative having furloughed a number of customer-facing employees. But due the firm’s strong trading into the second half, and the strength of its balance sheet, the Board has made the decision to pay back all furlough monies received.
Overall, the company expects to report full year Adjusted EBITDA in line with current market expectations. This reflects the increase in instructions in the second half and operating cost control more than offsetting the additional £1m of furlough funds repaid.
Purplebricks says its balance sheet remains strong with cash at 30 April 2021 of £74.0m, down slightly from £75.8m at the end of October 2020.
Vic Darvey, CEO, said: “We have delivered a strong performance across the company with instructions up 12%. I am pleased to see the housing market continue its recovery as lockdown measures ease and buyers are aided by the stamp duty holiday.
“We have made good progress on executing our strategic initiatives, including advancing the review of our pricing strategy in spite of the pandemic. We look forward to providing more detail on these new initiatives at our Full Year results in July.
“I am proud of the Board’s decision to pay back all furlough monies received and of the robust performance over the last year. As lockdown restrictions continue to ease across the UK, we remain confident of continuing our strong trading performance into the new financial year.”
Purplebricks will publish its full year results for the year ended 30 April 2021 on Tuesday 6 July 2021.
Like them or not, they will receive credit from investors and customers for repaying furlough monies. It is the right decision to repay monies owed to society for the help it provided during a difficult period.
Connells, LSL, Foxtons, Hunters – all trousered the cash and paid directors bonuses without repaying society first of all. Apologies if any of these firms have belatedly done the right thing and I haven’t noticed.
Knight Frank, Savills, JLL, Winkworth, Belvoir led the charge and repaid grants and furlough monies voluntarily. Highly competent management across all of these credible firms.
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Fancy now employing all the staff you made redundant during the pandemic? Didn’t think so. Swept that under the rug didn’t they
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Underwhelming
“I am proud of the Board’s decision to pay back all furlough monies received”
Well done .
The best Vic can offer .The sum total of his achievements .
No new initiatives and not a mention of Homeday in Germany .
It looks now as if the glass ceiling was reached in 2019 when they listed 69,000.
May is already looking disappointing and inventory has shrunk 11% in a month, Fast becoming yesterday’s news “
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Well done to them paying back furlough monies.
However they are going to need those cash reserves when IR35 catches up with them …… Just a matter of time.
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With £74m in the bank, why did they take furlough cash in the first place? Which staff were supported by £1m, I thought LPEs (or is it LPCs) were all self-employed?
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Admin. management and directors wages
They probably took it as a safety blanket, as much as i despise them, i think it was the right thing to do especially now paying it back.
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Bit rich claiming the glory for returning furlough money they didn’t need after the sheer stress and uncertainty they caused their work force during the first 3 months of the pandemic. They can spin it whichever way suits but the facts are they lost a lot of good, loyal people due to the mismanagement of the impact of the pandemic and I’m sure they are still feeling the effects. Either Vic isn’t as ‘nice’ as he likes to portray himself or he had no idea what was going on under his nose for the majority of 2020.
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