Foxtons’ shares dropped almost 9% yesterday on the back of its results for last year.
Countrywide shares also took a dive, of almost 7%.
Foxtons’ shares ended the day at just 76p, still above their low of 64.5p of last October, but way down from their high of 285p in May 2015.
Reaction from investors follows news that Foxtons was cutting its dividend by over half, with pre-tax profits down by 65% to £6.5m.
The firm declared a dividend of 0.70p per share for last year, compared with 2p the year before.
Broker Peel Hunt was unimpressed, giving Foxtons’ shares a sell rating. It said: “While we accept London market transactions have fallen over the period, we do not believe the reduction has been of a similar magnitude to that experienced by Foxtons and therefore we think the group has lost market share.”
Countrywide shares also looked to have been spooked by Foxtons’ results, plunging 6.9% to finish at 85p.
Countrywide is to announce its own results next week.
Comments (3)
Simple, CWD’s share price is linked to confidence in it’s future as much as the results it’s been posting over the last few years. You can’t change the historic results but you can learn from the mistakes and try to stop the rot! There are only 2 options: a) sell off in parts and realise profits for shareholders or more favourably b) recreate some of the really good historic aspects that worked. Bring back Bob Scarff (I know some people won’t like that, probably people he dismissed!), merge FS and New Homes back in to sales because they are completely linked to one another, let Bob bring back real experience in the Divisional MD roles and then in turn bring back great MDs to run a region with autonomy. It’s not hard, it will need backing from the top and a lot of people will no doubt leave, but they could still be at CWD now because they enjoy the lack of scrutiny in the failed world of recently departed leaders.
The writing was on the wall. The tenant fee ban was due to the some who would at times be charging upto £500 till the time the tenant moved in. Charging £50 for a two liner reference form, £100 for just amending a tenancy and some even charging 4 x weeks rent upon renewal of a tenancy agreement just to name a few. Many landlords are getting fed up of the Government rules and regs and many are seriously thinking of selling off. Many hundreds if not thousands of job losses are expected out of the tenant fee ban alone
Rightmove’s share price just on a bit of a slide there… Shame.