Countrywide founder Harry Hill has suggested that the current board should have ‘had the decency’ to resign after overseeing the disastrous retail experiment strategy devised by Alison Platt.
Hill told publication Propmodo: “The fact that they are now choosing to distance themselves from radical style changes introduced by the now departed CEO, without having the decency to offer their own resignations, I think speaks volumes about their qualities.
“Such has been the decline at Countrywide, I don’t think that the downward spiral is capable of being arrested and can see no solution other than a complete break-up of the group with some parts sold and others closed down.”
Hill told EYE yesterday: “I am on record as saying I can see no viable future for the group in its current shape.”
He again predicted “an orderly break-up and sell off”.
Hill launched Countrywide after buying it for a nominal £1 from Nationwide in 1994 – Nationwide at that point was losing £20m a year on its estate agency business. Hill had to promise to deliver £1bn of mortgage business in return, a strategy he always described as risky, and the reason why he described Countrywide under his watch as a distribution network for selling financial services.
An early champion of cross-selling, he went on to launch Rightmove.
Yesterday, shares in Countrywide closed slightly up, at a little over 14p, with a market cap of £73.2m. It is planning to raise more than this value, with a fundraise of £140m.
Share prices in Rightmove also closed slightly up yesterday at 4,935p, with a market valuation of almost £4.3bn.
The full Propmodo story is below.
https://propmodo.com/uks-biggest-property-firm-issues-new-debt-at-80-discount-to-stay-solvent/
Countrywide: Now looking to raise £140m in three-year rescue plan
Comments (12)
It is clear that AP was not working without the approval of the board and they should share the responsibility of of what has happened.
In short , the performance of the business has deteriorated , the best management have jumped ship, the remaining staff have no idea of what is going on and the investors have seen a 90% collapse in the recent share price.
Before even considering the remedial steps that need to be taken , one should consider the attractiveness of the rights issue. When investing in a business, look at the model, look at the management and look at the market. Please refer to paragraph above.
When faced with a challenge the last thing a board or director should be allowed to do is leave, resign or be forced to resign. Facing the challenge, sorting out the challenge and learning from the challenge is what in my book is experience, that’s where respect and leadership comes from.
If all those in anyway connected with what Countrywide has gone through and is going through are allowed to wander off, the experience, the pain, the stress and worry and all of the executive thinking wanders out of the door with them, that leaves the lessons un-learned and un-experienced by those that follow.
A good attempt to defend a total car crash of poor decision making and head in the sand support for a utterly failed strategy where everybody who raised any objection was either eased out or paid off. I think the word that best sums this up is ACCOUNTABILITY of which the useless BODS seem never to of heard of. Could you really see the likes of say Connells getting into such a mess? I don’t think so.
I’m not defending anything I am saying the experience of getting it wrong is a valuable one and losing that experience through resignations or sackings is counterproductive.
Having a board and all of their connections throughout the investment world is hugely valuable and its valuable that they are telling everyone they connect with: “Disruption? that nearly finished my business off but we pulled it out of the fire when we realised how flawed the disruption model is. There is only one way to run a profitable agency and that is to do it properly at a #local level”
>I’m not defending anything I am saying the experience of getting it wrong is a valuable one and losing that experience through resignations or sackings is counterproductive.
Perhaps they could replace the current directors with new directors who have even greater experience of getting things wrong.
What do you think Countrywide and their board should do Cyberduck ?
You have to have some sympathy with Himanshu Raja .The FD who arrived in June 2017 .Opening up Pandora’s box in his first set of accounts wiping off hundreds of millions of goodwill .Surely not!!!
The ink barely dry on the purchase contracts of the various businesses bought and sanctioned by the BODS financed with borrowed monies.
In addition 3m of shares held in Treasury bought back by the BODS with borrowed monies whilst the SP was cliff falling ,virtually worthless. You couldn’t make it up
Fair play to him mind he showed loyalty he joined in the “feast “himself.Made 3 share purchases 122,841@162p . 89,408 @ 135p and 10,503 @134p Eventually seeing the light his capital losses nearly outweighing his entire salary!
DIRECTORS
The irony is not lost having spent millions buying in talented individuals who ran successful businesses the BODS chose to go outside the industry to recruit the senior appointments not one individual deemed worthy of elevation to BODS level despite all that borrowed money spent .We know how well that worked out . What a shower
Most of the rich boys on these boards are part time with no industry skills…a club and when it all sinks well leave the employees and poor holding the can. same ole
Harry Hill done the deal with Nationwide at the right time.
I agree the whole board at Countrywide should have gone. They killed a model which was working ok and could of possibly seen through the downturn.
Could Harry Hill turn around Countrywide under current market conditions?
….and Harry Hill is far from perfect!
Who is? I would say he got more things right than wrong when at the helm.
For the avoidance of doubt Sir, I never claimed to be perfect-or anywhere near perfect, but I am simply stating my honest opinion under my own name.