Results round-up
Pre-tax losses at hybrid online estate agent Purplebricks narrowed in the six months to the end of October as revenue grew and sales exceeded its full-year target.
The company reported a pre-tax loss of £2.8m compared to a loss of £6.4m the year before. Meanwhile, adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation came in at £300,000 compared to a loss of £6m as revenue grew to £18.7m from £7.2m, exceeding the group's sales target of £18.6m.
Average revenue per customer was up 20.6% to £1,000 and Purplebricks sold and completed on £2.59bn of property in the first half of 2017 compared to £2.77bn for the full-year 2016.
Purplebricks also said on Monday that its launch in Australia was more successful than any of the initial regional launches in the UK.
Chief executive officer Michael Bruce said: "Our strong results are testament to the seismic shift that is underway in the estate agency market. We continue to win over an increasing number of customers by offering them a complete and seamless high quality estate agency experience at an attractive fixed fee. I am especially proud that currently we are agreeing a sale every 16 minutes, 24 hours a day and the number of properties sold in the first half is similar to the total number of properties sold during the whole of the previous year.
“These results demonstrate that the business model is working, with the UK generating a maiden half-year adjusted EBITDA profit whilst growing market share.”
The company acknowledged that the UK market backdrop is tough, but said it continues to have a confident outlook for the future.
ReNeuron, an AIM-listed UK based developer of cell-based therapeutics, saw first half revenues double due to a series of successful drug trials.
Revenues were £22,000 for the six months ended 30 September 2016 up from £11,000 in the first half of 2015.
During the period, the group completed dosing in the Phase II clinical trial (PISCES II) of its CTX cell therapy candidate for stroke disability. All 21 patients in the study have completed three-month follow-up, with ten patients followed for six months and three for twelve months.
Chief executive Olav Hellebø said: "The results of this study represent the most important clinical milestone in ReNeuron's history and enable us to progress the CTX treatment into advanced clinical development in this indication. The unmet medical need in chronic stroke disability is enormous and we are delighted that we are now one step closer to being able to offer an effective therapy to these patients.”
The Phase I/II clinical trial of the human Retinal Progenitor Cell (hRPC) cell therapy candidate for the blindness-causing disease, retinitis pigmentosa (RP), has also progressed well.
"ReNeuron remains well-funded to advance all of its therapeutic programmes through to further significant clinical milestones and we look forward to reporting further progress in the months ahead," said Hellebø.
Research and development expenditure increased in the period to £7.88m from £3.72m.
As a result, the group incurred a loss for the period of £7.7m, lower than the loss of £4.48m in 2015. Cash consumed by operations of £6.99m up from £5.26m in 2015.