(Alliance News) - OnTheMarket PLC said Thursday said its loss widened in its most recent year as administrative expenses more than doubled, with advertising expenditure six times higher than the year before.
OnTheMarket owns property search portal OnTheMarket.com, which includes sales and lettings in the UK. The company posted a pretax loss of GBP14.5 million for its year ended January 31, deepening a GBP12.1 million loss the prior year.
This was the result of administrative expenses, which rose sharply to GBP27.8 million from GBP9.7 million. This included advertising expenditure, which ballooned to GBP14.9 million from GBP2.2 million, and a near-doubling of staff costs to GBP6.1 million from GBP3.4 million
Revenue rose 4.4% to GBP14.2 million from GBP13.6 million.
Looking ahead, OnTheMarket said revenue is now "broadly covering operational costs" prior to marketing expense and its May 31 cash balance was GBP10.2 million.
Chief Executive Ian Springett said: "OnTheMarket has delivered a year of strong operational progress since its [initial public offering] in February last year. The group's strategy to build strong network effects and deliver increasing value to our agents is working. We are established as one of the leading portals and our progress to date has given us confidence that we can continue to build on this strong start and develop a market-leading, agent-backed alternative to Rightmove and Zoopla.
"We are benefiting from growing agent support and are strongly positioned to continue our growth in agent offices listing and in agent firms converting to becoming investors alongside long-term paying contracts. The board believes that with the continued support of agents, we are well placed to deliver long-term value to shareholders."
Shares in OnTheMarket were up 2.9% at 108.00 pence on Thursday.