The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
Ok, here's another, it looks like Gittins has told everyone to post ahead of the Q3 numbers next week, maybe like Converium Capital last year Gittins is also getting cheesed off with all this US Bank and Hedge Fund manipulation as Foxtons shares approach their year lows and now some 91% wiped off off their mkt cap since the high after the floatation back in 2013.
My message to Gittins, arrange a management buyout of at least £1.00 (I will help to organise funding no problem), take the company private and whilst the rest of the sector capitulates over the next 3-5 years, bring the company back to the market aka BGC Capital partners (although their timing was very lousy !).
Easy money !!
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jack-pinion-11b876181_wegetitdone-activity-7117776338400227328-F3K_?trk=public_profile_like_view
And good to see that Gittins is still dishing out new Mercedes cars to his staff ahead of next week :-
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/katarzynatargosz_q3achievements-topperformers-puertobanusbound-activity-7117530023242121216-txzJ?trk=public_profile_like_view
Foxtons are due to report their Q3 numbers next week and as I have said on here previously, I think the company is on for its best Q3 since 2015, the year after its floatation.
All areas of the business are producing record numbers and 2023 will be the best year of performance by the company since 2015, it may even challenge for the top spot no less !!!
Gittins will play it down again no doubt, we'll have the usual ' ......due to current market conditions, the uncertainty of interest rates, the lack of housing stock..' etc. but in reality Foxtons are coining it in from every area of the business !!
In addition, next year there are around 2.5m fixed rate mortgage holders that will need to re-finance once their current deal expires in 2024 and in 2025 there are some 3m fixed rate mortgages due to be re-financed !!!
Interest rates started to move up towards the end of 2021, early 2022 and so the market will need to keep interest rates high for at least another three years to break those final few that are still smarting over their current 5 year low interest rate fixed deals.
I also just had another look at the list of Estate Agents going bust lately which I posted last month and another 14 companies have since bit the dust in the last month, one company in Croydon had assets of £80m no less !!!
Croydon is a cesspit at the best of times, lets just leave it at that !
Roll on those Q3 numbers next week !!!!
Courtesy of Bloomberg :-
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-property-rental-market-sees-230100829.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAL5vXbxQ92qSs0E_YQ3T5e8tNRvgUzP3v_auCHcg0WmyW9cxD4wM2smgOhDFOrP067Uf2WbAAGENmrY7qM_r8CiWsxPeMfTY9KL2fx05crcGYfbiev-RQTpHXMZ44fMHG3MScYaqMjgioS_EotEYX-C7tZoVdHd2lq3rHaG-O7fu
All looking good for Foxtons and come November in the Chancellor's Autumn Statement expect incentives for first time property buyers, a return to the Help-to-Buy scheme but with additional incentives, a relaxation of UK Stamp duty say up to a certain threshold (possibly £500,000) and many other possibilities that the Government's think tank can come up with from now until then.
Tree-shake Friday tomorrow, I'm looking to add a few more ahead of the Q3 statement on the 20th, so that will do me just fine !
:)
I mentioned on here previously about Foxton's collaboration with the on-line property auction company BidX1 and with auction lots now being sold over the guide prices at the latest September auction BidX1 together with the auctions team at Foxtons must be creaming it in !!!
Here's the latest stats from the September auction which together with August are traditionally the most quiet months of the year, just like house sales in general :-
https://www.eigpropertyauctions.co.uk/auctioneer/bidx1
Will Gittins finally tell us all how well the Auctions team are doing this time round whom are looking to post their best ever quarter as he kept it quiet in his interim result statement back in July ????
In addition, just read the other forum and the interest Foxtons are receiving on tenants holding deposits is something I never factored in !!!
This company is generating money all over the place !!!!
I mentioned that the Foxtons website hadn't been updated with any new news articles since 1st September and low and behold three articles magically appear this morning supposedly dated 18th, 25th and today 29th September.
Tree-shake this afternoon perhaps ??
And I wonder who else is reading this forum ??
Just looking back at some of the recent Friday trading sessions in Foxtons shares, on the day of the interims less than 200,000 shares traded in total after the RNS of Thursday 27/07, the day after some 1.4m shares traded on the Friday.
We had that smash and grab or 'tree-shake' if you like a few Fridays back which didn't amount to a great deal, just more 'me-to-you-you-to-me' games amongst the market makers. Over 280 trades, the most in Foxtons shares this year amassing just over 1m shares in total traded that day and not a single seller took fright !
And just last Friday, official volume for the stock was around 170,000 shares at the close but when searching around the unofficial volume in Foxtons shares was actually 3,157,000 !!
So the game play is well and truly on, so expect more market maker fun and games today especially as its the last Friday of Q3 !
In addition, its interesting to note that all the staff at Foxtons have suddenly gone quiet on that Linked-in forum, no-one throwing champagne bottles around, no-one picking up gleaming new cars and no-one boasting how well they've been doing this last quarter. Has Gittins told everyone to clam up !!
Even the Foxtons website hasn't been updated in any categories since the first day of the month when previously it was updated every other week !
Nothing to see here............hmmm ????
Looks like Friday's total volume 'unofficially' was 3,157,000 shares . Good to see the game play is gathering even more momentum as we approach the interims.
Looks like yet another one of those large 'off exchange' trades went through late Friday, around 2.5m shares. Let's see if it's still kept hush hush this morning.
First Friday of the month and before the new school term starts in earnest this week after the Summer holidays lull and what did the market achieve, well it looks like another agency cross trade but a smaller amount of 289,000 shares printed this morning.
And the stock has recovered all of its 'Tree Shake' Friday losses, quelle surprise, even a blindfolded cyclops could have seen that coming !!
Will we see another tree shake, I very much doubt it, the market whilst testing the water for sellers was reluctant to drop the stock below 35p for too long as the buyers came in.
In addition, Foxtons are holding a recruitment evening today and at one point last week around 65 jobs at Foxtons were advertised, across ALL divisions !!
And finally, Divi in this week, so more shares in the pot !
Lovely !!!!
The '3440' algo sell trade has been executed via the order book untold times since 10.00am and all the buy trades of the stock have been conducted outside of the order book as far as I can see. The stock has done over 180 trades already today, that is the most for some time !!
No short positions in Foxtons and no-one selling, so just more 'me-to-you-you-to-me' games via the MMs to get the price down for reasons I'm sure we'll find out soon enough !!
Its an 'algo' trade of 3440 shares, obviously the Yanks are it again, just have a look at the intra-day chart, explains it all.
This afternoon's session could be very interesting ahead of the weekend !
Ctd.
With finance rates at lofty levels, private equity/buyout firms are now seriously crunching numbers when over the last ten years they didn't blink an eyelid, could it be that Foxtons may be not succumb to these lot but be subject to a hostile bid from a rival instead ???
I posted this about a month ago and since then we have seen many poor and extremely dire sales figures coming from SpicerHaart, Winkworths and Savills just to name a few and just this week we saw yet another estate agent shutting up shop on a few of its branches :-
'Arun Estates is to close six London branches under the Douglas Allen brand name from next week, with the majority of staff to be let go.
We are told that the offices to close are situated in Ilford, Chingford, East Ham, Barkingside, Chigwell, and Wanstead.'
Just search Douglas Allen for the article in full.
I also had a look at one of the websites listing companies that have filed (or are due to file) for administration and the one below lists 20 Estate Agents/Letting Business that have gone to the wall in just the last month alone.
From what I can see nothing would be of interest to Foxtons that's for sure but it is worth taking a look, just type Real Estate in the 'Business Sectors' field :-
https://www.administrationlist.co.uk/
And finally, I have been looking at the Rightmove half year results and those dire numbers from Savills a few weeks ago,
Rightmove now have a market cap as of this morning of £4.6bn and Savills £1.2bn, Rightmove reported H1 profits of £133m vs £122m in 2022, Savills reported H1 profits of £6m this year compared to just over £50m for H1 2022 and had a net cash balance of £12.9m for H1 2023 vs £149 m at the same stage last year.
Oh dear.
And there was me thinking for the last year that Foxtons had 'private equity buyout' written all over it !!!
All we need now is a Berenberk research report to play down Havieron a bit more than they have done in the past and SD will save himself a few more quid !!!
:))
Since those interims, I like to think that many outsiders looking in can now see that Foxtons are doing extremely well compared to their peers and how about this posted in July from one of the lettings Managing Directors just before Mr Gittins downplayed the interims :-
'....... Celebrating our record ever Lettings week of over £2.6m really is the icing on the cake and it has opened doors to places, people and experiences that I only dreamed of when I crossed the Severn bridge in 2003.'
Yep, just one week !!
Did Gittins mention this in the interims of course not, or did he just acknowledge the lettings Manager Director behind the scenes so as not to raise eyebrows in the investment community, see what you think :-
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/guygittins_wegetitdone-foxtons-activity-7073049595836018688-pMUe
You must be joking !!!
I have mentioned the success of the Foxtons Auction team during the last quarter, their best since 2016 and here's just more evidence that Foxtons are continuing to do extremely well during August in both their rentals and sales divisions in the South and South West of London as an example :-
' Our biggest 'ever' week and record August for offers agreed in sales!' &
'A record month in New Malden & Sutton lettings under the amazing leadership of Suganth Wimalendran'
The liknedin article in full :-
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/james-stevenson-8a626b154_foxtons-wegetitdone-careers-activity-7102566853306114048-oZdB?trk=public_profile_share_view
Wow, its come round quick !! Not too many headlines in the news (no doubt by design) and whilst Putin will be 'skyping' or similar from his Moscow office, Xi Jinping will be there in person along with 40 odd other world leaders and representatives.
Lets see what the Yank Banks and Biden have up their sleeve, remember GS did say that they will do everything to preserve the US Dollar and its role as the worlds reserve currency !
Crash paper Gold, quite possibly ??
And just one more Linkedin post :-
'......Year to date these superstars have delivered record organic revenue and volume growth in lettings and in a testing sales market generated double digit market share growth for both sales and new instructions. '
And in full :-
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/james-stevenson-8a626b154_wegetitdone-foxtons-activity-7093256231942811648-BKQg?trk=public_profile_like_view
25 trades executed in the market this morning of which two were buys , 24 shares @ 39.9025 and 3 shares 39.70.
Brilliant stuff, more of those big buys again please this afternoon !! :))