More details about Agents' Mutual's float on the stock market, the placing priced at 165p.
The company is looking to raise approximately £30m in equity through the placing of new ordinary shares, which will give it an anticipated market capitalization on an admission of around £100m, according to a recent statement sent to the London Stock Exchange.
The £30m seems to be substantially less than the £50m suggested some months ago by Agents' Mutual spokespeople.
More recently, Agents' Mutual said it will start dealing on the Alternative Investment Market at the beginning of February and is anticipating agents will own over 70% of the issued share capital.
To prospective investors, the company said: “The key proposition of the business remains the creation of an agent-backed, full-scale property portal to disrupt what is otherwise a duopoly of Rightmove and Zoopla by offering a premier search experience to consumers whilst charging sustainably fair prices to agents.
“From Admission, the Directors believe the OnTheMarket portal will have over 5,500 branches representing around a third of the total UK residential property listings.
“Agents provide the majority of income for the property portals and also supply the majority of their most valuable content – the property listings. As a portal with significant agent support, the Directors believe OnTheMarket.com is uniquely positioned to create an alternative to the leading incumbent portals and to provide an opportunity for a broad base of agents to participate in the equity value of their own portal.”
Agents' Mutual revealed its strategy for the proceeds of the float.
It includes a two-year market budget increase of £25m a year which they hope to use to raise awareness of the OnTheMarket portal, as well as "scale up" the infrastructure of the company, meaning sales, technology, and CRM.
Another goal is to grow the "core base" of agents advertising on the portal. This requires recruiting more agents and broadening agent backing with the targeted use of equity incentives for key agents with long-term listing agreements.
Join us in Bangkok from the 28th of February to the 1st of March for the 22nd Property Portal Watch Conference. The theme for this year is The Future of Online Real Estate Marketing – Getting Closer to the Transaction.
