Member Info for cyberduck

>Yep, I love how the truth is now pouring out and everything I ever said is being validated by people on the ground in the UK and USA more and more.

It sounds like they've been offering support to LPEs here in the UK until now so perhaps not what you were seeing in Oz?

Or did they provide support over there too?

Are those politicians still on holiday?

They need to sort this Brexit thing out quickly before it ends up causing a recession.

Just quick. The solution doesn't really matter because the country is divided over it and whatever is put in place won't last forever anyway. Dragging this out for whatever reason is the worst thing that can happen. Need some sort of psychological line drawn which will take away a lot of the uncertainty even though it won't be the real end.

We still have good employment levels, low interest rates, and easy access to finance. Affordability and confidence levels are a problem in London but let this spread throughout the UK and we'll end up with another recession.

I've been following news on BTR and there seems to be a lot going on in terms of investment. I'm not sure I've seen too many news items on occupancy levels and whether it works out well for investors though.

Quite a lot outside London but this one does mention London...

https://www.property-magazine.eu/long-harbour-secures-a-further-500m-build-to-rent-investment-venture-51443.html

For those interested my proxy figures for May 2019 show 1529 listings so far. This compares with 1672 for the same period in 2018. The May Bank Holiday in both periods unless I'm mistaken. There were about 695 LPEs back at this time in 2018. Not sure how many now in the UK but there were about 642 on 1st April.

For the same period in 2017 I have 1681 listings. LPEs were being added rapidly back then and I have about 473 on 4th May and 508 on 11th May.

Just approximate numbers. Do your own research.

>This lady has been having a good run certainly towards the top of the tree .New York very pedestrian

The Jennings' were the 2 best performers when I reviewed the 12 month period from 16/3/18. 60 sales and 3 active listings for John and 55 sales with 7 active listings for Valary.

You can't help thinking how much money they would have made on a commission basis, but PB providing the leads of course. Maybe they're now set up for life based on their performance figures?

>I find it hard to believe that Axel Springer would invest £125m for accelerated growth in the USA and entering other overseas markets unless he had been encouraged by actual data available for the USA at that time.

Sorry - always making that mistake. Axel Springer are a company, Axel died a while back. Change "he" to "they".

>This company has been destroyed and Bruce brothers lead the charge, driving the share price higher on speculation with global expansion and then selling before they reported to then city

JVSOZ,

There were 2 main share sales by the Bruce family as far as I can remember.

One was shortly after raising the £50m to enter the USA market. I think they raised capital at £2.20 and then shortly after sold some of the family shares at £3 to institutions who were basically falling over themselves to get a piece of the pie because of the growth in the UK (and even Oz).

Then the company later raised £125m capital from Axel Springer and members of the family sold at this time too. "In order to secure a shareholding in Purplebricks of sufficient size, Axel Springer has also agreed the purchase of an aggregate 6,944,444 Ordinary Shares (the "Sale Shares") at 360 pence per Sale Share, representing an aggregate value of approximately £25 million, from Michael Bruce (Group Chief Executive Officer), William Whitehorn (Non-executive Director) and Kenny Bruce (Global Sales Director). The Share Purchase is conditional on the Subscription becoming unconditional.". This came at the same time as a profits warning.

>This company has been destroyed and Bruce brothers lead the charge, driving the share price higher on speculation with global expansion

I find it hard to believe that Axel Springer would invest £125m for accelerated growth in the USA and entering other overseas markets unless he had been encouraged by actual data available for the USA at that time. Maybe they had the wool pulled over their eyes but I would be surprised that a company like Axel Springer didn't carry out due diligence before agreeing to the investment on 26th March 2018.

It was clear to see things weren't going to plan in Oz back then and the UK was slowing down. Even I had posted here several times prior to that to warn investors to keep a close eye on things.

So I'm not really buying "Stay tuned as we expect a response from regulators and institutional investors that demand their money back"

lloydyboy,

Raising capital is one of the main functions of the stock market.

I only started following PB in early 2017 but I've done quite a lot of research. Woodford's initial pre-float investment was £7m for 30%.

The actual capital raised for the UK operation was £22M pre-IPO, then another £25M at IPO. Then they raised £50m explicitly for the USA expansion and from memory I think they were reporting that they were profitable in the UK. Then they raised another £125m, mainly to accelerate the USA expansion and enter other overseas markets which appear to have been Canada & Germany.

According to the announcement they still have £62m cash.

It's very hard to put a value on the UK operation but it is still growing instructions (about 6% year on year according to my proxy) and they have typically increased the average revenue per instruction and say there is plenty of scope here.

Then you have to look at costs. The original story was one of scaleability. Keep marketing costs level, hit break-even and then every new instruction less the cost of sale is profit growth. They didn't keep marketing costs down though but in the last audited accounts they reduced it as a percentage of turnover.

I think the key is marketing costs. Can they continue to drop as a percentage of turnover? We only sell our homes once every 7 years so I'd say there must be pent up demand from marketing that has already been paid for. Can they actually reduce their marketing expenditure over time?

Also, the longer that PB are around, will this result in the more conservative among us giving them a try?

Can they get away with increasing their fee? Again, this would go straight to profit.

Certainly questions over the valuation but the UK is still interesting and shouldn't actually need capital for that part of the business.

They also say the business in Canada is doing well and I think this was profitable in the original region before venturing into other regions.

386 new listings yesterday according to my proxy making 6007 for the month. Down from 6490 in April 2018 where their bumper last day was 423 new listings!

I make them up about 6% on sales listings compared to FY 2018 for the UK.

All just approximation - do your own research.

The people they need to convince are investors who will be needed to keep the USA going. Probably Oz too if they haven't increased UK profits enough to cover Oz losses which is unlikely but we are guessing at marketing, admin spend and income from referrals and letting income.

Investors will presumably have all the data made available to them to see how quickly things are growing in the USA. Just looking at Los Angeles in isolation will give a good idea of what can be achieved because they've been there the longest.

Not the end of the world if they withdraw from the USA unless you're a shareholder perhaps. But you can never tell how the market will react.

>And I guess, given that Wimps is one of the big boys, that Mr Market will be looking closely at what the next big boy has to say - Persimmon, due on 1st May..?

Don't know anything about TW but most of HPI problem lies in London according to last update from Gov. From memory, something like 0.6% including London and about -3.8% in London.

Out of the builders I do know a bit about PSN seemed to be the one with lowest focus on London and the SE and their ASP seemed a lot lower than the others. They also manufacture some of their own materials but I don't know how significant this is.

I still like BWY and RDW because of their relatively low PBV compared to the other big builders and they do seem to be increasing volumes and picking good areas for development with a little HPI. Whether that continues will be interesting to see.

Need to get Brexit sorted. Just take the deal on the table and review in a couple of years. Nothing is for ever. Did I hear that politicians are on holiday?

>RPI has been varying beween 2.7 and 3.1% over the last 12 months Nothing overly severe but maybe just enough to cause some problems for quite a few Should imagine that outside London the impact of this is just starting to be felt

Where we are you pay about £750 per month rent on a £200K property. No idea what current mortgage rates are but this makes a mortgage with 4.5% interest or lower a reasonable proposition.

Steph,

Corbyn describes himself as a democratic socialist which includes:

"Much property held by the public through a democratically elected government, including most major industries, utilities, and transportation systems"

"A limit on the accumulation of private property"

"Governmental regulation of the economy"

I wouldn't trust Labour's stated policies if that's what he really thinks.

.

>Not enough for me to always fly business class but maybe economy plus will be affordable.

Steph,

All economy class when Jeremy Corbyn gets in power. Apart from for gymnasts and senior party members (everybody equal except some more equal).

A friend of mine who's legs are rather too long for economy class had paid extra for front seats and Lech Walesa and two heavies got on and there was a big fuss made about him having to vacate his seat. A battle of wits later and one of the heavies had to trundle off to economy. Spent the journey chatting to Lech.

Wave goodbye to your TEF shares too. Housebuilding to be nationalised. :)

Getting close to financial YE and according to my proxy of PB UK instructions which I've been keeping since February 2017 PB are looking to grow sales instructions by perhaps 6% on FY 2018. I don't track lettings instructions.

There was an increase in fees from £849 to £899 in the FY and typically they increase ancillary income.

Do your own research. These are just approximations.

Now with 2 jobs. Makes you wonder why he didn't go back to his £40,000 job which included holidays and a car.

MY LPE said he joined PB because he could see how the sector was going. Had plenty of experience. Said branches were closing. Agents for sale for figures unlikely to be achieved. He left PB after about 18 months with them. Might have been a couple of years.

>Poor Purplebricks being bashed by self-interested estate agents again... Oh no wait

Behind a paywall.

Kramreklaw, you'll have to cut and paste what you think is relevant if the FT are backing your claim that there's tax dodging going on and the competitions authority is going to be after them. Still waiting for you to substantiate those claims.

https://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2019/4/purplebricks-stock-downgraded-by-80-by-investment-bank

A bit more background.

From "buy" to "sell" with price target 80p.

>I do expect some company specific announcements soon on BTL deals that may bring forward earnings and help eliminate the EPS dip for the next two fiscal years. That will really help us fly.

Wondering what others think about the prospect of further big deals coming soon. Whether operationally speaking TEF are in a position to expand the pipeline much more.

JDS stated "Following this review of the balance of the business we now anticipate changing at least three of our existing sites from individual sale into build to rent and, coupled with developments already underway, this will drive its increasing prominence in our development pipeline. As a result we expect that over half of our development pipeline will be made up of schemes that comprise a combination of build to rent homes and subsidised affordable housing before the end of 2019."

At the same time JDS said "we now expect profit before tax for FY 2020 to be significantly below FY 2019.". So presumably factoring in these changes.

The pipeline is currently 5000 properties and back in July 2018 over 4000. I'm wondering if, operationally speaking, TEF can add a lot more to the pipeline. The 900 home development at 9 Elms increases the pipeline dramatically and isn't scheduled to complete until the end of FY 2024, so spread over a long time. Is that a suggestion perhaps that they're at an operational limit? Or doesn't it tell us anything?

I also am having difficulty imagining that 2020 & 2021 could ever have achieved the £50M profit that TEF were talking about making a base for further growth. If they are converting developments from open market to BTR then that is actually bringing profits forward and profits are estimated to be down in 2019 and then down significantly more in 2020 (with a couple of sources I've seen saying around £25M for 2020). We know £15m of profit has slipped from 2020 to 2021 but £5m has slipped from 2019 to 2020, which explains £10M. I'm struggling to get anywhere close to the £50m being talked about.