Shares in Purplebricks rose yesterday after the online agent posted its first set of interim results to the City.

That was despite reporting losses of £6.4m in the six months to the end of last October.

Yesterday, chief executive Michael Bruce and chairman Paul Pindar both topped up their shareholdings in the company.

Pindar bought 300,000 shares at 78.16p each, which means he now has over 11m shares representing 4.6% of the equity.

Bruce bought 320,000 shares at 78p, meaning that he and “his connected persons” have 41m shares representing about 17.2%.

The announcement of the directors’ purchases sent the shares up from 78p to 84p, and they ended the day at just over 83p – still some way short of the 100p launch price.

Meanwhile investment bank Zeus Capital, which acted as adviser and sole broker when it brought Purplebricks to market last month, yesterday issued a glowing report.

The report was distributed through a PR firm to journalists, without mention of the connection.

The report said it expects Purplebricks to break even this financial year and be profitable in the next.

Zeus noted that by Monday this week, Purplebricks’ share price had fallen by 27% to 73p since its float just before Christmas when shares were placed at £1 each.

But Zeus said that in under two years “Purplebricks has established itself as a leading UK residential property agency”.

It said Purplebricks had a “breakthrough service proposition”.

It said it expects Purplebricks to have a total of 94,420 properties on its books at the end of 2020.

Its report also contains two pie charts showing current market share taken by Countrywide, followed by LSL and Connells, with slim slices taken by Purplebricks and online.

In five years’ time, the pie chart shows Purplebricks to have similar, or slightly more, market share than Countrywide, with the online slice also having grown.

Zeus Capital says: “We are confident that Purplebricks will over time increase its market share to become the largest UK estate agency business.”

Purplebricks, the report predicts, will bring in nearly £121m a year in 2020.

The report, by Robin Savage, misspells the name of Purplebricks chairman as Paul “Pinder”.

It ends with some small print that does not specifically mention its connection with Purplebricks.

It only says that Zeus Capital “may have a position or holding in any investment mentioned in this document”.

Savage joined Zeus Capital last November as research director, says the Zeus website.

His expertise includes previously being a corporate broker to companies including Mortgage Advice Bureau. Over the last decade, says the Zeus website, Savage has worked on eight IPOs including Rightmove, Zoopla and Foxtons.