Purplebricks shares dive on sales outlook shock

Shares in estate agents Purplebricks plunged after it slashed its sales forecast and announced the departure of two senior executives.

The company expects sales for the current financial year of between £130m and £140m. Its previous forecast was between £165m and £175m.

Purplebricks blamed a “challenging” UK housing market and “headwinds” for its Australian business.

The chief executives of the UK and US business will both be leaving.

UK boss Lee Wainwright is leaving for “personal reasons”. No reason was given for the departure of Eric Eckardt, the chief executive of the US business.

Shares in Purplebricks dropped sharply on the news, falling as much as 40% before recovering.

Losses

Purplebricks was launched by founder and chief executive Michael Bruce in April 2014. The idea was to create a lower cost, more flexible estate agent.

The company has been expanding rapidly, but has also seen losses grow as well.

In the financial year which ended in April of last year it reported a loss of £26m, up from £6m in the previous year.

In today’s statement Mr Bruce said the company was in a good position to take advantage of growth potential in the UK, US and Australia, but added “albeit not entirely as we would have wanted before our year end”.