Foxtons reports ‘strong operational and financial performance’ despite a drop in revenue.

The London estate agent this morning said revenue had increased significantly at the start of this year as the market continued to be supported by pent-up demand and the stamp duty holiday.

Foxtons said revenue for the first two months of 2021 is “well ahead” of both last year and 2019, with the sales commission pipeline more than 30% than the corresponding period last year.

The company announced group revenue of £93.5m last year, down from £106.9m in 2019. It made a pre-tax loss of £1.4m, but this was down from £8.8m.

The company also said it had made adjusted operating profit of £1.9m, up from a loss of £700,000 in 2019, through a £15.9m reduction in operating costs which offset a £13.4m reduction in revenue, thanks in part to government support.

The business also reported ending last year with cash of £37m, up from £15.5m in December 2019.

In December Foxtons agreed to buy Douglas & Gordon. The company has now been acquired for £14.25m adding a further 2,900 tenancies.

CEO Nic Budden said: “Foxtons has showed itself to be a flexible and resilient business when faced with the unprecedented challenges presented by Covid-19. We focused on the safety of our staff and customers, as well as the interests of all stakeholders,
and in the context of considerable uncertainty, took steps to protect our business. This allowed us to maintain essential
services to priority customers when the property market was forced to close in March 2020 and rapidly build back
capacity when it was re-opened in June 2020. As a result, we were pleased to deliver a strong second half performance
and progress our strategic agenda, most notably through the acquisition of high-quality lettings books and growing our
market share.

“We are grateful for the shareholder support we received and now have a strong financial position to support our
business and strategy. Improved second half trading gave us confidence to announce the return of £3m of excess
capital to shareholders in the form of the ongoing share buyback.

“I am also enormously grateful for the proactive, flexible and resilient response shown by my colleagues to the
challenges they faced this year. We successfully made rapid and significant changes to our operations in order to
support our customers in challenging times and quickly adjusted to doing business in the new operating environment.

“2021 has got off to a strong start, with further improvement in financial performance and the acquisition of Douglas &
Gordon demonstrating the continued progress against our acquisition and growth strategy. The March 2021 budget
announcement, which brought more certainty for our customers, and the rollout of the mass vaccination programme is
expected to result in higher volumes in the residential sales market which, with our expertise and results focused
proposition, we are well placed to benefit from.”

There is no dividend for shareholders.