Purplebricks Group plc Interim results for the six months ended 31 October 2016
UK division achieves maiden EBITDA profit with plans to accelerate market share growth
Purplebricks Group plc (AIM: PURP) (“Purplebricks”), announces its interim results for the six months ended 31 October 2016.
Financial highlights
|
H1 2017 |
H1 2016 |
|||||
| UK | Aus | Total | UK | Aus | Total | |
| £m | £m | £m | £m | £m | £m | |
| Revenue |
18.3 |
0.4 |
18.7 |
7.2 |
0.0 |
7.2 |
| Cost of sales | (8.1) | (0.2) | (8.3) | (3.1) | 0.0 | (3.1) |
| Gross Profit | 10.2 | 0.2 | 10.4 | 4.1 | 0.0 | 4.1 |
| Gross Profit Margin | 55.6% | 49.7% | 55.5% | 56.4% | 0.0% | 56.4% |
| Administrative expenses | (3.8) | (1.7) | (5.5) | (3.8) | 0.0 | (3.8) |
| Sales and marketing costs | (6.6) | (1.0) | (7.7) | (6.6) | 0.0 | (6.6) |
| Adjusted EBITDA * | 0.3 | (2.5) | (2.2) | (6.0) | 0.0 | (6.0) |
| Net Cash | 29.1 | 9.7 |
* Adjusted EBITDA is defined by the Group as loss/profit before tax, depreciation, amortisation, net finance costs and share based payments charge
Business highlights
- Revenue growth of 159% to £18.7m, exceeding full year 2016 sales of £18.6m
- Local Property Expert growth of 119% – recruited 124 LPEs in the period to reach 329
- UK business generates maiden profit – adjusted EBITDA of £0.3m (H1 FY16: loss £6.0m)
- H1 instructions increase by 108%
- Average revenue per customer up 20.6% to £1,000
- Sold and completed on £2.589bn of property in H1 2017 compared to £2.766bn for the full year 2016. Sales agreed subject to contract pipeline a further £2.521bn
- Successful regional launch of Australian business in Queensland & Victoria; £0.57m** ($1.08m AUD) of instruction fees in the first seven weeks to period end
- Strong balance sheet with net cash of £29.1m
- Trustpilot reviews increase to over 10,580 scoring an ‘Excellent’ rating of 9.4 out of 10 – over 10,000 of the reviews are rated Excellent
**Represents instruction orders received in the seven week period
Commenting on the results, Michael Bruce, CEO stated:
“Our strong results are testament to the seismic shift that is underway in the estate agency market. We continue to win over an increasing number of customers by offering them a complete and seamless high quality estate agency experience at an attractive fixed fee. I am especially proud that currently we are agreeing a sale every 16 minutes, 24 hours a day and the number of properties sold in the first half is similar to the total number of properties sold during the whole of the previous year. These results demonstrate that the business model is working, with the UK generating a maiden half-year adjusted EBITDA profit whilst growing market share.
We have also demonstrated that our team can internationalise our model with the successful launch of Australia which has performed better than any of the initial regional launches in the UK.
Although we recognise that the UK market backdrop is tough, we continue to have a confident outlook for the future. We have momentum, a superior, low fixed cost flexible business model and a strong balance sheet, which we will leverage further in the early part of the busier spring market so as to build on our success to date.”
To read the full results click here
