Purplebricks Group (AIM: PURP) amazing growth but the valuation still looks a bit crazy!
The so called ‘hybrid’ estate agent providing a new way to buy, sell or let property, delivered fabulous top line growth for the six months ended 31 October 2016, boosting the share price, which had fallen 38% from previous highs. However, before everyone gets too excited it’s worth remembering this business is valued at approximately £360m and so far hasn’t made a bean! Our latest Blog ponders the valuation further.
Management talks of a ‘seismic shift underway in the estate agency market’ and while we are all in favour of a wholesale change to this status quo and commend their offering it’s a struggle to see how one business can be an outright winner where there are so few barriers to entry, which PURP’s current valuation surely implies, and a growing number of rivals – think easyproperty.com, emoov.co.uk, tepilo.com, urban.co.uk, housesimple.com, housenetwork.co.uk etc Revenue in the 6 months was up 159% to £18.7m with the newer Australian business contributing £0.4m and first half sales exceeding full year 2016 sales of…