This morning LSL reported in a trading update to the end of October that it expects full-year profits to be in line with its earlier expectations.
While residential sales income tumbled by 9% in the ten month period, lettings income rose 4% and financial services revenues were up 18%. Altogether it meant that income in the estate agency part of the industry was up by 3.4%. Surveying income also rose, by 5%.
Over the same period, flagship brand Marsh & Parsons delivered revenues of just 1% down on a year ago, with lettings income growing 4% to help offset the 5% fall in residential sales revenue in the ailing London market.
Altogether LSL’s group revenues for the ten months to October 31 stood at £270.5m, up from £260.9m for the same period last year.
However, bank debt grew, from £42.3m to £47.4m. The increase in debt was mainly due to two financial services acquisitions and the recommencement of lettings books acquisitions.
Belvoir has also been on the acquisition trail, announcing this morning the £3.6m purchase of Mortgage Advice Bureau (Gloucester). Belvoir bought Brook Financial Services, another MAB business, in July last year. It means Belvoir now has 10% of MAB’s total mortgage adviser base, with 127 mortgage advisers in 64 offices.
Michelle Brook, managing director of Brook, will head up Belvoir’s entire financial services division, which Belvoir said is delivering a new income stream for its franchisees.
Belvoir also reported that trading “has continued well and is in line with market expectations”.
Separately, Countrywide started a jittery new week when its shares dived to an all time low yesterday of just 9.11p.
The fall registered at the London Stock Exchange was minus 4.6%.
At the same time, Purplebricks piled on almost 5%, finishing at 181p after a low of 170p.
The price, however, is a very long way short of the near £5 per share – 489p – it hit in February this year.
Foxtons’ shares finished yesterday at 47p after a fall of over 2% on the day.
Emoov meanwhile insisted yesterday it is staying out of administration as it continues its urgent quest for a buyer.
Comments (25)
Sarah Beany. LOL.
It’s not looking good for Emoov.
Might call them out tomorrow and ask their LPE what is really going on. That’s if the LPE’s are still there.
At least Sarah Beany got rid of her liabilities.
Michael Day always good value for a considered view
https://www.propertychronicle.com/online-hybrid-estate-agency-beginning-end-end-beginning/
It’s a festive time of year so I will look at the jolly news…LSL…
I have yet to dive into the results but their Corporate Client Division has always stood out for me. CCD helps their lettings business sustain volumes as well as handling residential portfolio acquisitions and disposals at scale.
Some interesting offshore investors with residential portfolios too… Reformed Founder
Well Russell has made great play about the expensive ,valuable .sophisticated IT system but has failed to cope with the transfer of properties from Tepilo as this recent review has reported
https://uk.trustpilot.com/reviews/5bfc76a69d3780009881a292
Maybe poor old Alan cannot get a refund as they have no dosh to pay him!
I wager the only technology that works even remotely correctly at Emoov/Tepilo towers is the card payment machine….(although only capable of debiting, not refunding).
This is the 1990’s all over again. Not fat, some too big running from day to day to just keep going. Every Insurance company and mortgage lender learnt this one … all out of the market. Many of LSL agents were bought out collapsing business’s that needed that “loan” to keep going. Small agents can weather the storms as long as they are wise and are on the High Street.
Estate agents who don’t charge enough will go bust
Regional agents are at as much of a risk level as the nationals – Emoov and Countrywide are not the only ones
High fixed overheads are a killer
Without being in the room it’s difficult to know if Mr. Desmond is being really, really smart or really, really not smart or just business ethical. Mr Desmond is invested in a firm that has taken fees to provide a service and so the firm has liabilities to those clients and the staff.
If there is a way of fulfilling the obligations to clients and staff and trade out of a situation which Mr Quirk thought sensible to expose at the beginning of the month that is the obvious thing to do. However if Mr Desmond has assessed the situation as irreparable and is bringing matters to as clean a conclusion as possible as quickly as possible then it seems unlikely any other buyer will happily take on the trading liabilities of a firm that has demonstrated it doesn’t charge enough for the service it offers and in my opinion the even more daunting liability of a CEO who will so quickly and unwisely turn on his investors.
Contingent liability has to be a consideration for any due diligence process as has an assessment of performance and competition.
The telly advertising on C4 saw an uplift in instructions, but that did not as far as I can see generate much more than about 3% ROI, so that didn’t work. Sticking up the fees enough to cover costs will obviously assassinate the not USP of ‘we’re cheap’. Purplebricks are in the same boat but have investors with deeper pockets but the problem Emoov are really up against is that all the 6 #local agents in every activity centre between them keep winning 95% of all available listings.
The selling public could not be more clear, estate agents charge more but we’re prepared to pay more.
One thing you can never accuse Richard Desmond of is not being smart or bold .The outcome of Emoov is firmly in his grip having announced his arrival and ultimate control when gaining a charge over Emoov,From that moment on in charge of pressing all the buttons
Certainly sitting firmly in the seat as”lender of last resort”/ In a position to pick up the carcass for a bag of nuts if he decides to do so and easily move in a top management team and give Emoov every chance of making a success with or without Quirk
Quirk might rue the day shouting his mouth off as being shafted !!
Quirk might rue the day shouting his mouth off as being shafted !!
He is toast – fell into the same trap as Sarah Beeney. Northern & Shell will pick up another online only agent for nothing – but why?
They did little with Tepilo and Emoov doesn’t offer much more – is this an elaborate accounting exercise where cash is extracted by means of “management fees” until the victim is bled dry?
Don’t underestimate Richard Desmond if he thinks there is an opportunity .As you say he is picking these off for petty cash. Outplayed Quirk from the get-go .Finance is not an issue and there is the added bonus of going head to head with Axel Springer (via Purplebricks) where there is no love lost Remember this was the guy who successfully challenged Hello with OK! from a standing start
I can probably save Mr Desmond quite a lot of trouble and effort. Since we were first told how with help from Faisal Butt and James Caan (serial entrepreneur and star {now former star} of Dragon’s Den on the telly) Mr Quirk was going to revolutionise agency I have called this out as unworkable and developed systems that detect and undermine a lot of the claims being made.
This form of non traditional agency cannot compete with #local agency AND compete with the sub £100 passive intermediary services. Being in the no-man’s land between service and ‘listing only’ means there is a confusion what’s being offered. It is either an 9x as expensive listing service or it is a full agency service that doesn’t charge enough to offer a service.
Property is too valuable an asset to get it wrong and have no come back on those who got it wrong. Saving £2-3k to buy a react to enquiries system of selling is simply daft; the price achieved will tend to be lower because of the invariably its an auction with only one bidder.
Robert
Certainly will be interesting to see how this all plays out and if there is anyone prepared to pick up the ball. I think we will know by the end of the week.
Something tells me it unfortunately isn’t going to work out well for “Crumblingcube “investors
I suspect there’ll one person on the life-raft, just the one.
How much worst can it get for countywide? I always understood that if they dipped below 10p alarm bells would be ringing! They were at 9.11p yesterday, every time I speak with one of their employees such as the guys from John d wood or Hamptons they say everything is fine and they are just getting on with it, life goes on just like with the titanic!
That’s the problem, the staff don’t know how bad it is!
The management is still a shambles. They no longer have a minimum fee and braches covering the same patches are under cutting each other to ensure they hit the listing target.
They might well be able to manipulate RM market share reports but most the stock is over priced with a low commission in a falling market.
Rollo you need to make piece with the Countrywide thing. There are lots of us out there who were chewed up and spat out through restructures and changes in the market. Resentment and bitterness take the focus away from the day job of being proactive, winning the day, and being a great agent 🙂
Good advice but without knowing who you are not sure! I have no problem with countrywide, spent 8 years working for John D a wood which were great.
just really sad for my old colleagues who like me were encouraged to join the share scheme only to see it tank. I still own thousand of countrywide shares which are now junk as a result of poor management and bad decisions.
As you might know have moved on and now run http://www.agentandhomes.com
And having so much fun.
RQ’s “carrying on as usual” statement the other day failed to mention that they have stopped all sponsored link advertising since the smelly stuff hit the fan.
that got stopped a few months ago!
Not wishing to pile the pressure on but if we all get 5 spare minutes today might be worth going into Google and clicking Emoov sponsored links.
You know to show support, be a shame any money they have left it wasted 😉
That might be easier said then done, can’t actually find any sponsored links.
They out of money already?
They don’t have sponsored links – suspended all digital marketing a few months back. I assume because they couldn’t afford it. Much like they can’t currently afford fuel so staff are paying for their own!