Yopa losses widen to over £30m as it predicts ‘significantly improved performance’ ahead

Yopa made a pre-tax loss of over £30m, its latest accounts have reported.

Documentation filed at Companies House shows that in the 12 months to the end of 2018, Yopa made a loss of £30,365,369.

This compared with a loss of £18,332,269 for the year before.

However, Yopa says that 2018 was a “year of investment and strategic change”.

It says that its loss was a result of the investments made plus the launch of No Sale, No Fee, which meant deferred revenue.

The documentation says that the decisions made in 2018 and the first half of this year are “already starting to bear fruit and the company will see a significantly improved financial performance in the second half of 2019 and more fully in 2020”.

Yopa, which is backed by the investment arm of the Daily Mail’s owners, plus Savills and LSL, says in its newly filed accounts that there “remains sufficient opportunity for the business to grow and capture market share”.

The accounts show that despite its widening losses, Yopa’s revenue was up 60%, from some £4m to nearly £7m (£4,287,421 in 2017 to £6,857,065 last year).

Gross profit is started as up 32%, at £2,684,809, but a big jump in overheads – £33,050,375, up from £20,366,932 – helped it into actual losses.

Yopa’s cash in hand also declined, down from around £20m at the end of 2017 to some £10m at the end of last year.

Creditors with amounts falling due within one year went from £1m due to paid at the end of 2017 to about £2m at the end of last December.

Staff numbers also rose steeply last year – from 97 as at the end of 2017 to 200.

The accounts were signed off on September 27 this year, after the resignation of co-founder Dan Attia and the appointment of Grenville Turner as chairman, and just days before the departure of CEO Ben Poynter was announced on October 1.

The company, which currently has no CEO, received further investment of £16m in August this year by way of equity issue from existing investors with the exception of LSL which did not participate.

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21 Comments

  1. EAMD172

    Please – somebody invest £48m in my company over the next two years. I promise I will make you a profit. I just don’t get all these investors throwing so much money into businesses with no track record and business plans that are not based on any knowledge of the business they are in. We have made substantial profits from all our branches every year for 22 years. Why are you happy to lose £30m in one year and then put in another £16m to a company whose costs are so colossal against pitiful revenue? We employ around 50 staff and costs run at around £2.6m in total. What on earth are YOPA doing to run costs at nearly £38m??!!

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    1. smile please

      PPC, TV, Media and Radio. Is a large part of the overheads.

      Earlier in the year it was advised for every £1000 Yopa make it costs them £3000 to make it.

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    2. BBP

      It’s investors fault who throw out money without using common sense. You can’t help someone who wants to commit suicide, isn’t it?

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      1. Bless You

        The scores from this decade.:

        Google AdWords : £170,000000000000000000000.

        Online business : nil

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      2. Hillofwad71

        The history of listed estate agents teaches us that the final outcome rarely spells good news for the  private investor. One of the rare exceptions has been the mighty Savills!

        Not short of ambition they have increased their global presence prudentally and incrementally  Selective in their purchases of existing businesses  mindful that these often result in just golden goodyes to retiring  senior partners .

        You then have to wonder why on earth  they have invested so heavily in Yopa  almost  a complete antithesis to their existing buinesses maybe it is just some sort of hedging bet.

         

        Even  the name Yopa  doesn’t sound very Savills like

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        1. smile please

          Savills are going through BIG changes.
          You just have to look att he stock they now take on. Once the epitome of a top class estate agent only dealing in the very best the public had to offer. Today they are happy to take on a nice semi that a single agent independent would traditionally market.
          They have in the past set the bar but are now being pulled into the muck and bullets not only with their investment with YOPA but also their main brand.
          Our industry is in a state of flux i dont think we will recognise it in another 10 years.

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          1. Hillofwad71

            Musto meets Peckham

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  2. haveathink

    £7m T/O to lose £30m.  I would suggest they stop advertising to the general public that ‘traditional’ agents charge too much and stop trying to recruit our staff. If those who have taken high salaries/ dividends with investor’s money for this level of performance can look themselves in the mirror then good luck to them.  

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  3. Typhoon

    I know I was not considered to be a maths major at school but how does this translate into a profit anytime ever?

    £49m cumulative losses for the last 2 years (God knows how much before) Borrowings of an additional £16m this year. Revenues up  to £7m. So if their costs AND  income stay the same this year coming, it’s another £30.6 m loss isn’t it?

    These losses need to be recovered but how in the hell is that possible without revenue increases of gargantuan proportions I wonder.

    What kind of wonder drug as these investors fed before parting with their money?

     

     

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  4. downdoobydodowndowndubaduba

    Question is – do the investors know what their money is invested in? or is some excellent fund manager raising funds from investors and playing Robbing Hood with it?

    Did Neil Woodfords investors know their money was invested in PB?

    Doesn’t make any of them look very intelligent  – investors or fund managers but that’s the way of the world.

     

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  5. J1

    If this was a car involved in a crash it would be written off.

    Of course the next crash it has won’t be just as bad so let’s just keep pushing it along the road!

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    1. Bless You

      Car hasn’t got any wheels , so wouldn’t have even left the garage , in the real world. 

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  6. PepeM

    Come on Housesimple sure you can give this lot a run for their money (or lack of it) when you next report your losses !

     

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  7. Essjaydee51

    I think you need to stop having a pop at Neil Woodford as it only shows your ignorance, he has made a very healthy profit on PB, it’s his other investments that have failed which are irrelevant to this subject and business and his investors know the risks, with regards to his remaining PB shares you’ll find they probably owe him less than 50p per share due to the good bit of business he has done along the way, that said, he only owns shares, he doesn’t run the business.

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  8. PeeBee

    Interesting that every new recruit I’ve seen Mr Day Tw@ttering about in the last week or so appears to have jumped the not-so-good-it-seems ship YOPA to try his offering next.

    In fact – I can’t see a single horse in his stable that hasn’t bolted from there.

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    1. smile please

      Out of the frying pan into the fire springs to mind.

      Best of luck any agent joining EXP, KW or any other self employed contract. The franchisors basically have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

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  9. WiltsAgent

    Must be getting close to a cumulative ‘investment’ of close to a £billion in onliners over the last 7 or 8 years. Still no profits, for how much longer can they go on?

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  10. Andy Halstead

    Goodlord! When will they ever make real money, same goes for the ‘on liners’……..

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    1. PeeBee

      Just a quick reminder, Mr Halstead, YOPA was originally an acronym for “Your ONLINE Property Agent” – something they have since tried to bury under the carpet.
       
      web.archive.org/web/20150822221549/https://www.yopa.co.uk/

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  11. Penguin

    Yopa losses widen to over £30m as it predicts ‘significantly improved performance’ ahead.
    Hahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahaha……..

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  12. GPL

    I think this sums up Yopa & all our Onliners who spend millions on marketing their empty promises…
     
    There may be trouble ahead But while there’s moonlight and music And love and romance Let’s face the music and dance
     
    Before the fiddlers have fled Before they ask us to pay the bill And while we still have that chance Let’s face the music and dance
     
    Soon, we’ll be without the moon Humming a different tune, and then There may be teardrops to shed
     
    So while there’s moonlight and music And love and romance Let’s face the music and dance, dance Let’s face the music and dance    
     
     

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