Purplebricks founder Michael Bruce quits as CEO

Purplebricks’ founder Michael Bruce quit as chief executive with immediate effect on Tuesday as the hybrid estate agent apologised to shareholders for poor performance.

Bruce’s replacement is chief operating officer Vic Darvey, who joined the company in January from Moneysupermarket.com. It will close its business in Australia.

Bruce founded Purplebricks in 2012 to shake up the UK estate agent market. The company operates online and charges flat fees that can let sellers save money depending on how much work they do themselves.

The company floated on AIM in late 2015, attracting support from investors including Neil Woodford, but ran into trouble as it expanded too quickly in the US and Australia. Purplebricks warned on revenue in February when it parted company with the bosses of its UK and US businesses.

Paul Pindar, Purplebricks’ chairman, said: "We are very conscious that the group's performance has been disappointing over the last 12 months and we sincerely apologise to shareholders for that. With hindsight, our rate of geographic expansion was too rapid and as a result the quality of execution has suffered."

Pindar said the company had also made mistakes in allocating capital and would not do so again. He thanked Bruce for his vision and energy.

"The board is delighted to have an executive of Vic Darvey's calibre to take on the leadership of our business for its next important phase of development," Pindar said. "We have a lot to do and Vic has a clear vision of the priorities we need to address."

Purplebricks said that with its financial year over, the board expected group revenue to be within the reduced £130-140m range it predicted in February.

Its shares fell 6% to 127p at 0813 BST.