Despite a sharp downturn in sales during the second half of last year, Foxtons nevertheless managed to deliver results to the City this morning showing both a rise in revenue and profits for 2014.
Group revenue was up 3.4% to £143.9m, and pre-tax profits up 8.2% to £42.1m. However EBITDA (profit before tax, depreciation, etc) was down from £49.6m to £46.2m.
The firm, which floated in September 2013, was also reassuring about the nature of its “balanced” business, saying that sales revenue accounted for 48.5% of income, lettings 46.8% and mortgage broking 4.4%.
Overall last year, sales volumes were down by 3.7% and lettings up by 1.7%.
Altogether, Foxtons made 5,323 sales last year, compared with 5,525 the year before. However, it made more from commission per sale, earning an average of £13,119, up 7.5% from £12,202 in 2013.
The firm said it does not anticipate any recovery in sales volumes before May’s general election “after which greater political and economic certainty may return”.
The firm earned an average of £3,225 per lettings unit.
Foxtons opened seven new branches last year, bringing its network to 51. Seven more branches are due to open this year.
CEO Nic Budden said: “2014 was a year of contrasting halves. The first half was characterised by a very strong property sales market with transactions reaching their highest levels since 2008.
“In the second half we saw a sharp downturn in property sales volumes, particularly in central London.
“Despite these challenging conditions in property sales markets during the second half of 2014, our centralised business model, effective expansion strategy and strong position in lettings enabled us to grow revenues and maintain high EBITDA margins.
“Whilst we expect property sales activity to remain subdued at levels comparable to those seen in late 2012 and early 2013 until greater political and economic certainty returns, the long-term fundamentals of the London market remain sound and attractive.
“We continue to be confident that our organic expansion strategy, together with our strong lettings business, will enable us to grow revenue and profit even in a flat property sales market.”
Comments (4)
Good numbers from a 1 town agent. What is interesting is the fact there is a squeeze on fees, average commission up 7.5% when values rose in the capital by about 13-15% depending on who you listen to. Goes to show the need for a biz balance with sales/letting/mortgage
“revenue was up 3.4% to £143.9m……..All well and good, but this may well be the last year of such revenues – which are bound to be slashed massively when easyproperty launch into sales as well as lettings in the next few months.
Well done Foxtons, a great result.
They may not be loved by the public but the public love to use them!
£50 million profit… How dare they. That’s my money as a landlord . What I’m proposing is to whip up a frenzy, convince everyone it’s really easy to do lettings and get landlords to pay me instead . I’ll invent a one other estate agent rule and tell the landlords a load of stuff of them making loads of money, there all really greedy so they’ll stop using Foxtons who provide a decent service and pay me their money over 5 years … Then I’ll pay myself and my friends some huge wages and pension pots , and then possibly retire