The new owner of Purplebricks has appointed restructuring specialist Nick Pike to its board of directors.
The intention to appoint an additional director to the board of the company, to assist Dominique Highfield, and to provide additional experience in business transfers and company dissolutions, was stated in the Company’s Circular to shareholders dated 17 May 2023.
Pike is a restructuring specialist with 30 years’ experience in the sector. A qualified solicitor, he has worked as a partner in three UK firms: DLA Piper, Lawrence Graham (where he headed the Banking team) and Pinsent Masons (where he led the Restructuring team).
Pike retired from legal practice in October 2020 and now undertakes advisory roles. He is currently a council member of the Association of Business Recovery Professionals and is the chair of the Disciplinary Committee of the Insolvency Practitioners’ Association.
Purplebricks now operates as a private company, after delisting from the AIM stock market last month following its sale to rival Strike for £1, a competitor backed by the telecoms tycoon Sir Charles Dunstone.
Once seen as an innovator in online house sales and rental, with a peak market valuation of £1.3bn, Purplebricks put itself up for sale in February after issuing a string of profit warnings that resulted in its market value falling to £30m.
Purplebricks slashes fees as online estate agency aims to be ‘a major disrupting force’ again
I was asked to look at Purplebricks in 2014 when they first emerged, although my observations and comments appeared negative they were spot on. What I said would happen, happened and the challenges they would face have appeared. When I said the shares weren’t worth a pound I was right.
Sir Dunstone built his business, reputation and wealth based on offering customers a service so it seems strange he is being led down a path of customer disappointment and not delivering what customers are expecting.
I personally cannot see anything in this appointment that will deliver Sir Dunstone a change in the fortunes he’s acquired. That’s not a slight on Mr. Pike but its an observation he’s brought in the wrong domain knowledge and experience.
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…. unless Mr. Pike understand s the opportunity Sir Dunstone has available to him and where to get the domain knowledge required to deliver it
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The restructuring has begun, with LinkedIn connections at PB under notice of ‘Risk of Redundancy’, and excellent people with outstanding EA industry knowledge they are too. I genuinely hope they find employment soon.
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Nothing will change. They peaked at what the market will allow them to have. If they think they can get more ….. dream on. They would have been better off getting David Copperfield or Harry Houdini. Its a dead duck.
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a few more “jobs for the boys” but no agency knowledge, it’ll only go one way……………………………, down down deeper and down #ifyouknowyouknow
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The whole saga of PB is one of deception. The Bruce brothers managed to pull off an amazing task of fooling investors into believing they had created a business which could print money. It never was a viable proposition as intrinsically estate agency is really a local business serving a local community by agents who have local knowledge.
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As a previous share holder any chance I can get my cash of the proceeds that remain ?
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