(Alliance News) - Purplebricks Group PLC said Thursday it had a resilient performance in the first six months of its financial year, with diverse revenue streams and strong average revenue per instruction growth balancing out worsening property market conditions.
For the six months ended October 31, the estate agent said its revenue rose to GBP64.8 million from GBP57.6 million in comparable period a year ago, with 73% of the revenue coming from the UK and 27% from Canada.
Purplebricks pulled out of the US and Australian markets earlier this year.
Pretax loss for the recent period was GBP3.4 million compared to profit of GBP3.2 million a year ago.
"It was a challenging first half for the group with the number of properties coming onto the UK market falling to the lowest level in decade as consumers adopted a 'risk off' mentality'," the company said.
Purplebricks said trading was in line with expectations, and it maintained its 4% listing market share in the UK. The Canadian business "modestly outperformed expectation" in the first half.
Vic Darvey, chief executive officer, said: "We are very pleased with the progress made in the period in light of the market backdrop. We've seen resilient trading in the first half, with our diverse revenue streams and strong average revenue per instruction growth improving the quality of earnings and balancing out declining market conditions."
"We end the first half having now stabilized the business and the significant losses incurred last year have now been reversed with the group enjoying profitable trading," Darvey noted.
"We remain confident of meeting our medium-term objective to gain a 10% share of the UK market," said Darvey.
For the 2019 financial year, which ended April 30, Purplebricks' pretax loss widened to GBP56.0 million from GBP29.2 million, the worsened losses prompting its decision to quit both the US and Australian markets. Darvey took over as chief executive in May, promising to learn from the "mistakes" of the past.
Purplebricks also announced Thursday that Senior Independent Non-Executive Director Mike Wroe is stepping down from the board with immediate effect. Simon Downing, independent non-executive director, is appointed as senior independent director, and Paul Pindar will assume the role of chair of the audit committee.
Purplebricks shares were up 1.0% in London at 104.60 pence each on Thursday.
By Loreta Juodagalvyte; loretajuodagalvyte@alliancenews.com
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