Purplebricks shares up 60% in first year of trading

Purplebricks ended its first year on the stock market with its shares up 59.67%.

The online agent, which listed on the Alternative Investment Market on December 17, 2015, raising £58m at 93p per share, were 152p when markets closed on Friday.

This gives it a market capitalisation of £375m and means it has almost overtaken Countrywide, which drops out of the FTSE-250 today and closed on Friday with a value of £376m.

Over the same period, Countrywide shares have fallen 56.22%, LSL is down 25.69%, Belvoir fell 13.67% and Foxtons has dropped 43.88%.

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Source: Google Finance

It has been an interesting year for Purplebricks, which has also entered the Australian market.

It recently announced it had turned a profit for the six months to October 31, albeit based on an EBIDTA – before tax and after costs, depreciation, amortisation, net finance costs and share based payment charges – basis.

While the financial returns may be good, City analysts and many EYE readers continue to question how many properties it is actually selling.

It claimed in its results that it sold and completed on £2.5bn of property, compared with £2.7bn for the whole of the previous year, while sales agreed subject to contract were worth a further £2.5bn.

Perhaps 2017 will be the year we find out how many properties this translates to.

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16 Comments

  1. Hillofwad71

    Transparency  isnt their  strong point . I have been given conflicting information by Head Office and the local expert on figures Recent figures arent as bad as have been indicated  to me .Following Keyser,s lead I have trawled through  Rightmove  which breaks down Bricks to “regions” but I seem to be unable to get London up as a seperate area? Keyser  can you advise?

    There are regional variations but without exception  August naturally quiet with a big spike in September . Growth in new Instructions flattening out in October and November .Some regions peaking October others November. December on figures so far  likely to be about 25% down on November which isnt surprising .

    Certainly the new instruction levels are well short of the forecasts set out in the  listing last year in the Hardman  Report. It looks like approximately 50% of all those new instructions taken in October for example are under offer / sold STC.

     

    They  have reached  a bit of a tipping point in the Autumn with  spectacular  growth coming to a halt despite an increased number of LPE,s .It will be interesting to see if they can push on in the Spring of 2017.Their  current market valuation looks based on some very strong “hope “value .Hope sometimes has a  nasty habit of  disappearing  over the  horizon with its backside on fire .Jury definitely still out .They have it all to do  in a difficult market.

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    1. Keyser Söze

      I would recommend using Home.co.uk for your regional research and analysis of PB’s market share. Try this.

      Go to Home.co.uk.

      Enter the Location you want to analyse (e.g. Exeter).

      Click Find then Search. This gives 704 available properties in Exeter.

      Add this to the very end of the URL (this is the ID Home.co.uk have given PB) and press return to then get the number of properties PB have in Exeter:    &agent=920144

      This shows PB have 13 available properties in Exeter which is 1.8% market share.

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      1. Hillofwad71

        Thanks Ill have  a butchers at that and try and wade through the juggling !

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    2. PeeBee

      Hillofwad71

      Try this: http://bit.ly/2hzWgpv

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      1. PeeBee

        There’s an easy(ish) way of finding their “branch” locations on Rightmove, if anyone wants to know…

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        1. AgentV

          Yes please

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          1. PeeBee

            Open PBs page on Z (works best in ‘Most Recent’ mode).  They only seem to have one ‘Branch’ where all listings can be found.

            Pick a property – any property.  For example I’ve picked one in Bellemoor Road, Southampton which has been ‘Just Added’ today.

            Brochure shows the postcode as SO15 7QU – type/copy’n’paste into a RM search (don’t even think to bother with ‘Newest Listed’ mode as RM and Z dates often differ dramatically – as this property does…) and up pops the property on the search.

            When you open the property listing up, in the Agent Details section to the right of the photo panel you will see a hyperlink “View properties from this agent”.

            Takes you direct to that “Branch” – in this instance “Southampton”.

            So far I have 21 identified – I’m certain there will be others.

            I’ve Tweeted you the URLs – but now you know how I’ve found them and continue to look for more.

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      2. Hillofwad71

        Pee Bee . Yes  I started that  way  on Rightmove which gives you the south but only takes you back  a few months as max listings is 1,000 which is padded out with listings when  they reducethe price  Worked my way round the regions Brighton ,Portsmouth .Reading ,W&E Midlands Leeds, Manchester and Wales  although couldnt get Scotland or London itself seperately

        Keyser has put meon to this which you can search all bricks listings and count back from  recent postings which gives you the lot  and I am going to work my way throught it!! Its a game all the family can play!

         

        http://www.home.co.uk/search/results.htm?agent=920144&high=&minbeds=&low=&maxbeds=&detached=true&semi=true&terraced=true&flat=true&sort=FOUND_DESC&found_since=&inc_sold=0&showmap=0&loose=1

         

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        1. Hillofwad71

          Only takes you back 500 but can use it on a daily basis Best day so far  this month  was 67  and the worse 9 averaging about  43 per day so looks like about 1100 /1300 for the month  .Way behind target

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          1. Robert May

            Don’t forget the doppelgängers; you can’t  assume to numbers you are counting are accurate, some properties are on twice, identical in every respect other than the branch listing them.

            There are currently 6346 listings, 14 of which are doppelgangers giving 6332.

            If the 340 listing rep  figure is accurate that is 18 listings each,  multiplied by 4 gives an approximate annualised figure of 74 listings each for the year

             

            £2.5b  for 6 months is about 9000 completions, 18000 for 12 months

             

            18,000 is  apparently 88% of  instructions so  that is 20454 instructions for the year.

             

            20,454 lots of  £1060 gives a turnover of  about £21.7 million. Woo hoo rub me with lard and call me Betty that is a long way short of £24.9 profit promised for 2015/2016 financial year

             

             

             

             

             

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  2. AgentV

    The share price was gradually declining until they announced the small profit. It was that well timed news that boosted the price into the stratosphere. I still don’t understand why they can’t release categoric numbers on what percentage of the properties they have taken on have completed as a sale through them. Everybody is asking them, but they appear to not want to answer for some reason. Every agent would know this information about themselves wouldn’t they?

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  3. FromTheHip64

    Our ability to sell a high percentage of what we list and showing the evidence plays a major part in our “sales pitch” at valuation stage. No agent who is converting well would not make a big play of their conversion success. Every agent however big or small should have access to these stats. If the stats are good then any agent not using them to his advantage is slacking big time and probably shouldn’t be out listing.

    The only conclusion left to draw is that PB don’t see these stats as being relevant (???!)….or the stats are poor. I’m guessing the latter.

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    1. AgentV

      Good point…. I guess if they were happy with their own stats they would be singing it from the treetops.

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      1. AgentV

        Or the rooftop of each sold and completed property.

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  4. Robert May

    The number of fee paying listings, less the number of properties marked as withdrawn is the number of properties sold.

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  5. Property Paddy

    I don’t believe it !!

    I’ll have both feet in the grave if this company really do turn a profit that matches their share price.

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