Embattled fund manager Neil Woodford has cut his stake in Purplebricks.
He has sold around £16m of shares to lower his stake from 28.88% to 23.87%.
All eyes will now be on Purplebricks today.
If Woodford has sold these shares to Axel Springer, then the German publisher’s stake would rise from 26.6% to over 30% – at which point Axel Springer would have to bid for the rest of the company, with an offer to shareholders.
Axel Springer has in recent days doubled its stake in Purplebricks by buying up the shares of founders Michael and Kenny Bruce, and Michael’s wife Isabel.
Notification of Woodford Investment Management’s sale of shares was made yesterday afternoon in a regulatory news statement (RNS) to the London stock exchange. If the shares have been bought by Axel Springer, a further RNS is likely today.
Woodford may be pleased to exit Purplebricks, with trading in his flagship fund currently suspended and investors unable to take out their money.
Purplebricks has turned out to be a “dud”, says the Daily Telegraph, and is one of Woodford’s five worst performers.
Writing on the front page of yesterday’s Business section, journalist Ben Wright said that “a lot of the companies” that fund manager Neil Woodford has invested in have not worked out.
Wright specifically singled out Purplebricks alongside construction firm Kier and doorstep lender Provident Financial as “duds”.
In the same Telegraph Business section, Harriet Russell said that on a total return basis over the three years to the end of March, the five worst Woodford performers were Provident Financial, Prothena, Allied Minds, Capita and Purplebricks.
Russell said: “The online estate agent made a splash after listing in 2015 with promises to shake up the housing market.
“But a strong start petered out as the company went too fast, too quickly.
“Shares have fallen from a peak of over 500p in 2017 to 107p now as doubts about Purplebricks’ model persist.
“Despite the slump, Woodford is still marginally in the black on his investment. The shares are up 2.6% since he declared his 29% stake in December 2015.”
That stake has now been reduced by 5%, and yesterday, Purplebricks shares climbed almost 4% to just over 109p.
For Countrywide, the shares woes continued, with a drop sending its shares down to a low of 3.1p. They ended the day slightly up, at 3.2p.
Separately, yesterday’s Money Mail ran a letters section wholly devoted to an article the week before, headlined: “Are the walls crashing down on the cheap online estate agent boom?”
The article of the week before had quoted several people, including EYE: we said that progressing a sale, rather than getting it to offer stage, was the real challenge.
The same article had also claimed that traditional estate agents charge up to 3%.
Yesterday’s responses were mixed, but two took exception to the 3% claim, with one saying it was “laughable”.
The commenter added: “In my experience online estate agents are just listers, not sellers. Why on earth would you pay upfront before your property is sold?”
But others reported positive experiences – one with a major online agency, and the other with a hybrid agent which “packed in viewings and negotiated hard”.
Comments (59)
Above, Prophet’n’Loss once again makes the claim
““The Misdescriptions Act was abolished to assist buyers and seller to communicate without having to communicate via an unqualified estate agent who wanted a percentage of the homeowners asset to advertise and pass on messages – Fact!”
When I dared to disagree with this, back came the following (wrapped in the usual cut’n’paste insult offerings):
“That misdescriptions act was abolished to encourage passive intermediaries.”
He/she/prefers-not-to-have-a-gender went on to reinforce the previous statement
“That’s the facts and is not in any way derogatory or slanderous, merely the facts.”
I again challenged Prophet’n’Loss to show us the “facts” that were being referred to – but it must have been time for beddibyes for the precious little thing, because Prophet’n’Loss didn’t get round to posting the material information.
Still hasn’t. Must have forgotten – I believe that the sort of pills used in treatment of these cases do have an adverse effect on short-term memory (and of course complete loss of sphincter control).
SO, being the kind of person I am, I have sought out the “facts”.
Only – they seem to be different “facts” to those that ‘Prophet’n’Loss is referring to. But here they are anyways – and I’ve highlighted the most relevant “fact” just so as Prophet’n’Loss doesn’t have to go fish for it in all those nasty long words and things…
legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/1575/pdfs/uksi_20131575_en.pdf
‘EXPLANATORY NOTE (This note is not part of the Order)
This Order repeals the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991 and makes consequential amendments to other enactments. Since the introduction of the 1991 Act, Directive 2005/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices (OJ No. L 149, 11.6.2005, p 22) and Directive 2006/114/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning misleading and comparative advertising (OJ No. L 376, 27.12.2006, p 21) have been implemented in the United Kingdom. They provide the same protection for consumers as the 1991 Act but in a broader and more modern framework. The 1991 Act has therefore become unnecessary.’
Let’s see what P’n’L makes of this. MORE alternative “facts” to come – or will he/she/whatever simply be Prophet’n’Lost-for-words and realise that EYE is the wrong place to showcase one’s own irrefutable idiocy?
We’ll see…
Well done for trying but I suspect you won’t get a constructive answer, any more than I did a few weeks ago.
I can’t figure out whether he/she/whatever is just dense and won’t let go of a misunderstanding that he has got hold of or just trying to wind us up and goad us into a reaction by deliberately misrepresenting the purpose of the act and the reasons for it’s repeal. If it is the former, we are wasting our time debating it with him because he will simply ignore any facts that he doesn’t like or don’t support his misconceptions. If the latter, well, I guess that is a fairly good definition of a troll.
There are two types of prophet – the Seeker after Truth and the Jealous Guardian of His Own Truth. The former embraces new information while the latter actively denies anything that doesn’t fit his agenda. I wonder which type our own Prophet is?
Oh, look – Woodford’s dumped another 7.2 million.
No doubt Prophet’n’Loss is the one vacuuming them up…
Axel Springer and Neil Woodford have been completely roasted by the Bruces and fair play to them. Rightmove facilitated PB’s existence and we all carried on paying their grossly expensive monthly fee while our fee levels were trashed. The Bruces have even managed a clean exit. They’re have never been successful estate agents but they have certainly pulled it off here, albeit at the expense of their staff, their customers and their investors.
“Axel Springer and Neil Woodford have been completely roasted by the Bruces and fair play to them ”
Maybe Axel but I am sure they will make some changes and will be using Bricks as a vehicle possibly to make a challenge at the portals More than capable off improving the offer.
As for Woodford the facts show otherwise. His share sale yesterday made him a profit of about £8m on his total investment.The remainder of his shares standing him in for nothing .
Today they are currently valued at about £80m
And were previously worth £320m. Woodford looked thrilled in his video.
The timepoint we’re all waiting for is not July 3rd, it’s when they run out of money or run out of investors willing to provide financial support. The mantra of ‘oh if we only give them a few more mill we’re sure it will work out (this time)’…isn’t going to wash.
Given that Axel Springer are buying up shares do you not think they will pump more cash in ?
97% of the UK market didn’t touch PB after all its marketing campaigns and meggar£M’s. That is not a success after how many years!
It is running out of LPE’s and smacks of the “hire and burn out” from 40 years ago model.
July 3rd will be interesting day.
Axle Springer have a card to play, we can only speculate and await the news.
1. Emoov
2. House Network
3. Yourmove
4. Countrywide
5. Rightmove
6. NEXT Please
A dud? What rubbish. My understanding is that Woodford invested £5-8m very early on in PB for quite a large stake, say 20+%, when they were just another wannabe online agent. He saw the potential, they took that money and spent it on TV advertising. That was a genius move – like Moonpig did.
So Woodford backed and helped create a serious success story. Yes, PB has had issues, yes it got cocky and spent too much ££ in USA and Aus, and yes we can argue about the merits of pay-to-list, but, be under no illusion, PB was massive for its early shareholders and it has truly kicked the industry into the 21st Century.
So Woodford deserves respect for seeing the vision here.
Now, quite how much he invested later on I do not know, but the Telegraph piece does not give the whole story.
MrLondon. How can you say the TV advertising was genius. It was over 12 million quid a year. That’s how they got “famous” but couldn’t back it up with service. Once the tv advertising stops so does the business. All they’ve proved is that the public can be fooled by fake reviews, misleading adverts and “low” fees. Big deal. Who couldn’t do that.
I find it very hard to stomach that both the brothers walk away from this having made millions and without making a penny for the investors (unless they sold shares when they were high). Scandalous.
My earlier post about the brothers, i think they were the geniuses as they made millions and walked away clean with thier heads up.
Who cares about investors, if they are smart enough put money in a business then they deserve to be shafted.
Everyone here would do the same if a hghly qualified and educated investor came and poured millions in their business and you then walk away clean leaving the qualified investor holding the bucket!!!
You get someone to back your venture, you attack an industry, horrid working conditions for employees and then bail out when it all starts to go down the pan. Geniuses, no. Have they left with respect … debateable. You know what the country thinks about fat cat bankers.
Although I have many negative feelings about Purplebricks, one way or another they made themselves a household name. I’m pretty certain the only reason for such fame (soon to be infamy, perhaps) is that the man who ‘walked on water’, Neil Woodford, invested. His involvement legitimised them and their IPO, sparking a rush to invest in PB and all the other pretenders.
As Richard Hill says, “sad thing is that none of the main protagonists will have lost anything”.
This isn’t really news is it…..just letting you know that a rich guy now has a nice bit of loose change to spend on a new lambo!
……Ladies & Gentlemen
The exits are to the left and right ….there should have been purple parachutes under your chairs however…. we spent the money on virtual parachutes instead!
In the words of PurpleProphet101 ……bend over and kiss your assvestment goodbye!
Still baffles me how so much money has been made and lost on a company that barely makes a penny profit! Sad thing is that none of that main protagonists will have lost anything….
Whichever way you look at it, it’s a dead duck that fairly soon no plan will be able to resurrect it. In this market only the very best can survive. Well done though, despite the insults their adverts have dealt to the ‘mainstream’ agents, to the Bruce Brothers for devising a brilliant money making scheme in the first place.
Yes – The Australians didn’t take too kindly to Bricks marketing strategy either .It backfired
https://www.smartcompany.com.au/startupsmart/analysis/purplebricks-leaves-australia/
Gravolin specifically calls Purplebricks out for the tone of its marketing campaign, specifically, “how they made fun of real estate agents”.
While she’s not sure this would be “the most appropriate choice” anywhere in the world, this is another thing that doesn’t go down well with an Aussie audience.
“I don’t think that was well thought out, and it really upset a lot of agents,” Gravolin explains.
“Then you’ve got a fight on your hands that didn’t need to be there.”
JustPlainSavage04 “What are you going to do when PIE doesn’t write about Purplebricks anymore?”
Do you really think that Axel Springer are buying up shares out of the goodness of their hearts?
Whatever happens/whoever owns it .. PB arent likely to be going anywhere for a few years to come I would imagine
Fact. Imagine if they did get their act together and started producing real service and real results for a “fair fee” (the commisery angle is tired IMO). Nationwide awareness, presence in most markets – could be scary.
SamH
I agree. It will be an interesting time if there is a Mark 2 version… and the company is privately owned by AxelS
Ironically Brexit and a Quiet Market has turned out to have been a Traditional Estate Agents friend. (As a stalling factor in PB growth…)
Britain/The City is all about short termism and the pressure to perform that goes with it
“Imagine if they did get their act together and started producing real service and real results for a “fair fee”…”
IF. One small word that’s a mighty big target, considering their past and current service and results.
PeeBee – 100%. huge challenge that a lot of boards (not to mention the people on the ground who’ll need to be long game thinkers) won’t want to take on
Only reason people use them is they are so fake cheap.
The business model can’t make money.. just like traditional agents can’t make money.
It’s a dead industry.
Then they will be running the same overheads as other agents being a corporate. The cheap fee model would be out the window and they would run the risk of becoming another CW, Cornerstone, Prudential & Co. Commissary is the only thing they have and promised to the public. You can’t continue with the expenditure they have and be on the high street at the same time … non-viable. 97% of the market didn’t touch PB after all its marketing campaigns and meggar£M’s
Their USP is “we’re large and cheap”. Lot’s of negative press loses the perception that they’re large. Then if they take cheap away..?
Thank you for the spotlight in your comment, I take great pride in other people noticing my comments on PIE.
Anyway, in the famous words of Cyberduck, my last post on here today, other things to do 😉
Things are looking pretty grim for Woodford – just sacked by his biggest client (St.James’s Place), so the pressure will be on.
Having paid £3.60 and £3.07 for earlier share purchases, it looks like Axel Springer are now happy to pay £1.00. They are in a strong position to get a good deal by waiting another month.
Of course, Woodford may be desperate to sell before then !
Either way, it looks like Axel will control PB fairly soon and will start to impose some discipline and tuetonic order – expect a cull of the Bruce management team to rapidly follow.
>Purplebricks has turned out to be a “dud”, says the Daily Telegraph, and is one of Woodford’s five worst performers.
Didn’t he buy 30% of the company for £7m?
Then possibly paid another £10m later on. https://www.propertyindustryeye.com/star-fund-manager-woodford-puts-more-money-into-purplebricks/
If that’s the case then he still owns 24% of the company and has pretty much got his money back.
If the 5% he sold yesterday didn’t go to Axel Springer then that leaves him with just enough to sell to Axel Springer to give them majority control. Possibly demanding a premium over what he achieved yesterday. Just speculating but an interesting scenario.
What are you going to do when PIE doesn’t write about Purplebricks anymore?
PIE will always find something to write about Purplebricks because the articles get the most views and comments.
Then comes Rightmove.
Two of the triple whammy affecting Estate Agent profits. The other being the state of the market in general.
The articles on dishonest traditional Estate Agents don’t attract many views or comments.
Yes but the dodgy agents allow us to trade on honesty.
As agents we are left open mouthed while we watch rightmove and purplebricks destroy our businesses.
We are very lucky the media shark attacked Woodford which has hurt bricks.
Our industry was left with it’s trousers down. Not even onthemarket seemed to want to help.. strange place is the city.
“Purplebricks has turned out to be a “dud”, says the Daily Telegraph, and is one of Woodford’s five worst performers!
To be fair that hasn’t beeen the case for Woodford.Far from it.Certainly performed badly for Woodford over the last couple of years.as Bricks share price spiralled upwards.
However his initial lnvestment of £7m for a 30% stake in 2014 is showing a very healthy profit indeed at £1 per share sale.
Following a £10m share sale inJuly 2015 he paid a little more to maintain his 30% stake Nevertheless his announced sale yesterday bagging £16m for 5% so he has already doubled his money with plenty more to come
That’s a rubbish story though, ‘Rich man makes money’
Although he is wealthy personally the story is about the funds that carry his name .It’s the other shares in the portfolios that have done more damage than Purplebricks where there are huge investment losses from initial purchase . Although the value of Bricks have fallen considerably from their height in the Woodford still showing a gain overall
Never has the investment disclaimer “Past performance is no indicator of the future ” more apt !!
Amazing all these press papers calling PB a dud now when for the past 5 years all they have done is praise them.
Not sure I agree. While rightmove and zoopla and trade bodies have taken their blood money. The press has always been sceptical.
It’s our supposed gate keepers who have cost jobs and service levels.
Morning Sdaltaf101, in reply to your post 20 yesterday I have replied (post 23)- an explanation why an estate agent WILL on most occasions, achieve a better price for their principal than a passive intermediary, internet lister.
I am happy for you to keep you anonymity but tell me what you do so I can debate your confidence in the gleeful demise of my industry and my previous and prospective customers.
I will discuss the subject not, as the troll on here does, attack you personally.
If you will excuse the subject puns it’s more value to me not to have an industry clarifying debate de-valued by personal attack.
Be quick though, I’m going out with an agent today to demonstrate why I believe the aggregating portals and therefore the passive intermediary industry is about to be dealt a short sharp punch to the kidneys, as agent aggregation replaces property aggregation and hands power back to #local agents
What if the portals stop you aggravating them? Which should be law anyway. With consent laws so tight these days Iam surprised it’s still legal.
My vendor didn’t say nestoria could steel their property for advertising gain.
And what if Google puts a stop to all the duplicate content doorway page spam? If Agents are allowing duplicate content of their copy then there is less chance their own content will appear in Google.
The listings are coming from agents and housebuilders, it is not scraped data from the portals. Part of the delay building the system was finding innovator agents prepared to back something that is not a clone of Rightmove. We have a number of those now and began demonstrations to agents yesterday.
Yes but why will Agents agree to spamming the search engines with duplicate content that may appear instead of their own?
I have seen one example where a rummage4property page is appearing and Google states “In order to show you the most relevant results we have omitted some entries very similar to the 6 already displayed. If you like you can search with the omitted results included”
Then when you click to search with the omitted results included the Agents own page for the property is shown.
Rummage4 is essentially replacing the Agents own website listing.
If you list the number of pages in Google for rummage4property using the site:rummage4property.co.uk search in Google it states at this time that there are about 11,800 results. But when you click through the Google pages with 10 listings per page and you get to page 30 it states “In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 299 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included”
Can you explain why Google thinks about 11,500 of the listings are very similar to the 299 displayed?
Hello Robert,
I was unable to reply as the button had been removed and when I last looked there was no further comments so I presumed your reply button had also been removed, strange how mine was and yours wasn’t…anyway I’ve had a read and I would agree you filter the tyre kickers from the potentials but fail to demonstrate how the high street model ads more value as opposed to the hybrid LPE’s who do the same. With any enquiry there is always a process of due diligence and to presume the hybrid models fails to adequately adhere to the high levels of serves would be incorrect. You can ask any PB LPE past or present and they all agree the level of training was and remains of the highest quality.
Other than the due diligent I only see assumption based on assumptions and as I said before the housing market is an open market so it will always be the market which decides the price and not the agent, regardless if the agent is high street or hybrid.
May I ask, when you moved your agency online did the level of service you offer decline?, I think not.
The other comment by Arc is valid but underpins the quality and reputation of the industry as a whole and to presume one is better than the other is an opinion, there will always be good and bad employees within any industry and again fails to demonstrate how the high street ads value over the hybrid in an open market.
AgentQ73 has described a situation which in the real world would not happen and if it did you could argue this is tantamount to fraud so it would be interesting to see if AgentQ73 could advertise his agency and his name, but unlikely.
Ostrich17…least said the better.
Woodentop…thinks Yopa is on the high street, muppet!
Have a great day and lets hold hands, bow our heads and pray for great wealth and happiness from the Purple Brick.
Lots of love and kisses, the Prophet Sdaltaf
It is clear to readers from you postings that you do not really know anything about estate agency, just an impression on limited knowledge and assumptions and considering yourself to be an armchair expert.
It is also clear from your posts you have a hatred towards high street estate agents and your comments are naïve and biased and often extreme of absurdity.
You continue to keep making comment about YOPA on the high street. My comment was which high street agents are YOPA backers, but as usual you have not a clue at working that one out and spin it around to be insulting when you have been found wanting.
I wasn’t aware that RM had raised this point in todays question and demonstrates your attitude to go off subject, as a troll to be vile towards others when ever you can. You have some serious anger management issues and whatever it is you are sniffing, you need to stop, as it is making you look childish and no-one takes anything you say seriously and lost all credibility you could ever hope to achieve on this forum.
One very important fact you ignore …. 97% of the public use High Street agents, after years of Purple Bricks meggar £m’s spent on marketing, so you can hark on as much as you like on PIE about the colour of purple, the public don’t agree with you and that is not confined to just the UK.
It’s all very well calling Woodentop a muppet because you claim that he or she thinks that YOPA is on the High St (an observation which is explained and corrected in his or her post at 17:10) but let’s not forget that you are the “muppet” who thinks that the Property Misdescriptions Act forced sellers to use an agent rather than advertise their property themselves.
Hello Retiredandrelaxed.
Did you look in the mirror, I would suspect the answer was NO 😉
And the answer would be Nope…………………she / he didn’t because the original post which claimed “Yopa was already on the high street” was removed and all that followed was lies which is why I don’t respond – muppet!
The Misdescriptions Act was abolished to assist buyers and seller to communicate without having to communicate via an unqualified estate agent who wanted a percentage of the homeowners asset to advertise and pass on messages.
Which is why the hybrid fixed fee model will succeed.
“The Misdescriptions Act was abolished to assist buyers and seller to communicate without having to communicate via an unqualified estate agent who wanted a percentage of the homeowners asset to advertise and pass on messages – Fact!”
Oh, Prophet’n’Loss…
…you REALLY ARE the gift that keeps on giving.
Clue.
Not.
One.
Hello PeeBee
Are you back from day release?
I’m a big believer with care in the community so keep up the good attendance.
And…………Yes that’s why it was abolished so rather than spouting unsubstantiated nonsense please refer to facts rather than slander.
Have a nice day and lets all pray at the Purple Bricks
The Prophet Sdaltaf
“And…………Yes that’s why it was abolished so rather than spouting unsubstantiated nonsense please refer to facts rather than slander.”
Oh, please, Prophet’n’Loss – share with us the location of the “facts” you refer to.
Pleeeeaaaasssse.
I’d even go as far as to say pretty please.
To you (credit: Barry Chuckle 1944-2018)
Oh Dear……………..I’m talking to the village idiot
That misdescriptions act was abolished to encourage passive intermediaries.
That’s the facts and is not in any way derogatory or slanderous, merely the facts.
Have a nice day and lets all pray at the Purple Bricks
The Prophet Sdaltaf
Okay… I’ll take it slowly as you are clearly, irrefutably, hard of thinking.
S…h…o…w
u…s
t…h…e
f…a…c…t…s
you refer to.
You see, Prophet’n’Loss, it’s like this:
Thinking you can simply type any old MDT and try to pass it off as f…a…c…t is simply highlighting you as the undisputed top of the pops in the ‘PropertyIndustryEye Who’s Who’ of village idiocy.
(Spoiler: but we kinda knew that already)
Tantamount to fraud ?!?!?!? Care to expand upon that ?
Its all happening…..
Dont forget to show your support to PB. Click on those Google adverts.
Wonder what comes next?
BSOS23PC
You must be fun at parties