One hundred agents have returned to Zoopla from OnTheMarket, City analysts were told at a briefing by Zoopla yesterday.
The remaining growth of 113 offices came from new agent formation, the analysts were told.
They also heard that Zoopla expects returning agents to pay advertising rates in line with what they were paying pre-defection.
Meanwhile, according to the Guardian, Zoopla boss Alex Chesterman’s new deal will net him an £11m share sale plus long-term bonuses worth up to £20m over four years.
The founder of Zoopla, Chesterman has already made over £70m from selling part of his stake in Zoopla when it floated last summer, says the paper.
Under his new performance-based share plan, the maximum number of shares that can be earned over a four-year period is 7.5m, worth around £20m at current prices.
The paper says Chesterman’s new deal replaces a previous long-term incentive plan entitling him to shares worth up to 150% of his salary.
The Guardian reports he was paid £499,000 for the year to the end of last September, including a £302,000 salary.
City analysts were divided in their opinions as to yesterday’s trading update.
Numis said it was “encouraging” but Investec said the update was “light on financials” and that Zoopla’s “valuation remains expensive given weakened market position and OnTheMarket impact”.
Exane BNP Paribas said that only 100 agents out of circa 4,000 had returned from OnTheMarket and that “questions remain on 2016 prospects”.
Shares in Zoopla yesterday rose 4.68% to end the day at 264.85p – its second consecutive daily gain.
The Guardian report is here
Comments (22)
Wooo! – 100 branches, someone has already pointed out that the recent corporate buy up of various letting and sale businesses probably covers a big old dollop of this. Anyway, point is that this little no hope mutual keeps getting talked about by Z…..if they don’t have a hope then why is Z always going on about it?
Jonnie
“but you also know their facts have to be right, and verified” you are joking right?
Only yesterday Z stated in their report to the city that they felt many of the 3,000 + offices that left for otm would be returning in the next 12 months……….and you believe this to be a verified fact?
If you are talking about accounts……then they have to be verified whichever business you are and they are in the public sector data.
“100 offices”? Anybody know ONE?
Names would be nice. It’s called ‘substantiation’. ‘Proof’, in a word, of the claim which at present is ALL it is.
An ex-Member coming on here and explaining WHY they baled so early into the long trek would be better.
No-one’s going to start a riot over it – but surely they would want to put their side forward.
And at the end of the day their explanation might well make AM stronger – which surely is what they wanted in the first instance?
THERE’S irony for you!
Actually PeeBee, I do know of a few. I can name at least 2 firms that were OTM but were bought out by one of the corporates and now are not OTM, One of those firms has 7 branches.
I suspect that many of those 100 that came off probably bought into some of the negative industry press and believed that there business was being affected by not being on Zoopla.
100 is negligable in the grand scheme of things.
“I can name at least 2 firms that were OTM but were bought out by one of the corporates and now are not OTM”
That’s a fair enough explanation, Paul, in relation to what is probably a large chunk of the 100 – but that is simply NOT “defecting” as it is clearly being portrayed.
YET AGAIN the war of words is being fought with forked tongue and breath stinking of ********.
Agreed PeeBee, especially when you consider that Z were claiming a few months back that many agents were going back to Z when this clearly was not the case.
I also think someone needs to independently verify their inventory stock especially if they are relaying information to the city that based on a search yesterday may be incorrect.
Obviously if there are 100 offices returned it follows those agents still care enough about AM to keep their own counsel.
Instead of irony perhaps this story should be a wake up call to Agents Mutual members that there is a message about the OTM product. A strategic opportunity is being lost , a statement I appreciate will be received with irritation by some and nods of agreement by others. I am genuinely not trying to be provocative but when a farmer tells a professional lorry driver the lane it too big for his lorry, the lorry driver would do well to listen to the farmer not the sat nav.
He’ll be getting paid similar to Ian Springett then? One of them has done it from scratch , one of them has delivered the “I have a dream ” speech without anything to actually back it up and taken OTMers money …
Done it from scratch? what is that about Danny? Please calmly explain things as you see it starting from 15th January 2008 via August 2009 and up till the present day.
What I mean Robert is he raised his own money, created an enterprise and then sold his product … He didn’t get everyone’s money upfront , OTM is the biggest Ponsi scheme in one industry I’ve ever seen … Friends helping friends
OTM is a portal, it is a product/service it has been built from scratch for Agents Mutual which is an affinity group of agents which has been pulled together from scratch. One person has to lead such an affinity group. there are very few people capable of leading such a large group of entrepreneurs, directors, partners and principals, each of whom is used normally to having the final say on all matters relating to their business. It is not a case of friends helping friends Ian Springett has pulled together 5200 competitors who on a local level fight for every instruction.
Alex Chesterman has done equally well with Zoopla, Globrix, Thinkproperty Primelocation and Findaproperty being bought into one organisation, it is buying , not building. Both Alex and Ian should respected for doing and achieving different things.
What now has to be understood is what has been built, one is a commercial organisation which is profit motivated, the other is an affinity group that is member benefit motivated. Just because OTM and Zoopla are both portals the objectives are different.
Well put……its funny how danny,harryn, message and digital expert never discuss post after a post like this………they tend to run a mile once they have been proved wrong every time.
How do they know its 100 offices? – They may just have decided for commercial reasons to stop advertising and then go back to advertising with Z.
I would be surprised if any agent had already left OTM. Every agent i am sure went in know it would take time to gather traction and would be foolish to leave so early if they believed in it.
Your comment is that they may have decided to stop for commercial reasons .. What commercial reasons can you think of that would stop someone advertising with one portal. And then return to another whilst breaking a long contract ? Lack of leads , competitive pressure , no visible marketing ? Your right the two things may be completely unrelated !!
No.
I know small agencies that stop advertising on Zoopla when they have little or no stock and then they start again when they have stock to save cost (to me its false economy but agents do this)
I know of two by me so surely must be others in the UK.
A nice round number of exactly “100” have quit OTM to go back with Zoopla.
Still very, very low number, as most of the analysts agree. Also worrying that they haven’t attracted many of the total new start ups as well.
Just my opinion, but I suspect that a start up is likely to look at the range of portals and decide that actually neither ZPLA or OTM are worthy of their £’s an they will just start with RM.
Similarly if agents are leaving OTM (& I can’t think that there are that many because of the OTM tie-ins) rather than leaving the industry because of natural wastage via retirement or takeover, I suspect that they would not rush to go back to ZPLA.Why go back to paying for something that you probably haven’t missed ?
“Founder of company gets paid for success” shock horror, PIE can reveal.
Oh, and this doesn’t fit into our agenda, but based on fact, not hearsay, they’re also in growth, but let’s not dwell on that.
What odd reporting!
It’d be interesting to see what the heads of the other portals get paid for their respective performances.