Nobody cannot say that we did not call out the Purplebricks (PURP) joke for what it was numerous times. Others, including Neil Woodford, thought they knew better but our analysis was bang on the money. The company is now privately owned but it seems to be having a spot of bother. As you can see below…
Oh dear, Oh dear. More bad news from Purplebricks (PURP). It is enough to turn a man to drink and raises the very real spectre of shareholders not getting 0.65p in Q1 2024 but getting nothing at all. But I wonder if there may be one big winner from this disaster.
Oh dear, oh dear. Shares in the online estate agency Purplebrcks (PURP) once traded at more than 500p as Neil Woodford filled his boots (with other folks cash) and commentators such as the shop worker Paul Scott gushed about how disruptive the cash guzzling company that ripped off its customers by taking payment even though most properties were not sold, was going to be. Today the business, nearly all the assets (bar £5.5 million of cash) and the liabilities are being sold for just one quid to SPV Strike. What will shareholders get? If they are lucky 0.65p in Q1 2024.
Neil Woodford and Thirsty Paul Scott took the knee at the disruptive potential of online estate agent Purplebricks (PURP). In latter years the deadwood press blew smoke up the arses of the CEO and CFO as they were both women. Girl Power! More ESG vicar? Of course, the numbers never stacked up and the fundamental business offering was dire so shareholders and customers both got screwed. Those of us who do actually look at how a business runs and at hard numbers may be sexist old dinosaurs for doing so but we have another win. Today’s fess up from the birds in charge is grim.
Oh dear. Oh dear. The words “strategic review” are always bad news. What they mean is “we are screwed will anybody buy us.” But let’s start with a lack of profits warning from Purplebricks (PURP) and, as ever, it is what it does not say that should worry the muppets who still own the shares.
I noted in yesterday’s bearcast how Purplebricks (PURP) must be due a lack of profits warning given the increasing slowdown in the number of UK residential property transactions. Some high profile rats, it seems, are not waiting for the ship to sink.
After the shocker from RICS the other day, here, Rightmove’s (RMV) latest survey of the UK housing market makes for more grim reading. If you are still a shareholder in Purplebricks (PURP), which could not make money in the good times and so must now be spunking cash daily, why do you have a financial death wish?
There is no way that this turd can be polished. It is a turd for housing market bulls. The latest monthly survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) covering October is even worse than that for September which was itself pretty dire. Those seeing value in anything housing related shares ( Comrade Stacey?) need to take a reality check.
The latest RICS survey is utterly downbeat. Read its outcomes and you do not need to use complex spreadsheets to work out that a) Purplebricks (PURP) must be a zero as housing transaction volumes collapse and b) that shares in the housebuilders are heading only one way and that is due South. The survey is shockingly bad:
The new CEO at Purplebricks (PURP) can drone on about cost cutting, diversity and inclusion all she wants but when you are sailing into a macro-economic hurricane, all small ships will sink. My thanks to reader “ouzo man” for pointing out the latest data from the HMRC.
Some bien pensants like Neil Woodford and top share blogger, Paul Scott, insisted that Purplebricks (PURP) was a long-term disruptor in the Estate Agencies world. The reality? It was a piss-poor way to sell houses, and could only survive in a fizzingly hot housing market. Well, guess what?
As predicted on this fine website, AIM-listed Purplebricks Group (PURP)'s interims to October 2021 are suitably disastrous. But since the company isn’t bust (yet) the market has reacted with relief and the shares are marginally up on the day, at 20.3p – though a long way shy of the 50-60p they were at only last autumn, and a country mile off the £5 at peak Neil Woodford-ramp back in 2017. The opening preamble tries to polish the turd, but a peek at the formal accounts shows that it lost £20.2 million in just six months. During a housing boom where anything standing sold within hours and average prices roofed it as mortgages were almost free to a good home. Yikes – just how bad might it have been in a slump?!
