Foxtons Group plc

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the Foxen's 2023 interim results presentation. I'm joined by Chris Hough, Group CFO, and we will both be available at the end of the call to answer any questions you may have. To provide an outline of the running order, I will start by giving an overview of our performance in H1 and commentary on the market environment. Chris will then take you through the financials And I will finish with an update on our operational initiatives, an update on delivery against our strategic priorities, and finally some thoughts on trading in July and an outlook for the rest of the year. As everybody is undoubtedly aware, we are operating in a challenging market environment. However, as I laid out in March, there is still significant unfulfilled potential within the business. And whilst this is our first step on the journey, I am excited by the rapid progress that we have made to date. Turning to slide five. On this slide, we've presented some key financial and operational highlights for H1. As you can see, we've made significant progress in a short space of time against a challenging market backdrop, and we are delivering upgrades in our operational capabilities to rebuild our competitive advantages. Operationally, we are delivering change at pace and the business is responding well as evidenced by a much improved performance in H1. Investments in our marketing capabilities and overhauling our estate agency culture grew our market share of new property instructions by a market leading 8% in lettings and an astounding 43% in sales. Property instructions are the lifeblood of estate agency And growth here supports delivery of future market share and revenue growth. In my operational review in March, I highlighted the lack of true organic growth in lettings since 2016 and indicated that growth here was the main priority for the group. In H1, we delivered a 14% uplift in revenue as operational improvements delivered both market share gains and higher average revenues per transaction. In sales, we significantly outperformed the market, delivering a 15% increase in the market share of exchanged deals. And even more pleasingly, our share of new agreed sales grew by an impressive 33% in H1 versus the same period last year. This is a fantastic turnaround and was at the higher end of my expectations in such a short space of time. And in financial services, we grew volumes of refinance business by 29%, significantly mitigating the impact of the challenging external market environment. And this improved operational performance drove improved financial performance. Revenue grew 9% with significant growth in nettings as the main driver. Pleasingly, over 70% of revenues were from non-cyclical and reoccurring income streams. As we continue to decouple our business from the sales market cycle and enhance the group's earnings resilience. This is evidenced in the 10% growth in adjusted operating profit as we more than mitigated sales market headwinds and the cost of increasing fee earner headcount. Finally, profit before tax grew 42%, reflecting growth in underlying profits. It remains my aim to return Foxton's to being London's go-to estate agents, unlock the potential in the business and crucially create value for shareholders. I'm very pleased with our progress towards our ambition to deliver 25 to 30 million pounds of operating profit in the medium term. Turning now to slide seven and an update on the London lettings market. As you can see on the graph, the current dynamic is one of lower rental inventory, but higher levels of tenant demand, which continues to drive rental price growth. Data from Zoopla suggests that rental property listings in London were broadly flat versus the prior year, but still 27% lower than in 2019 levels. At the same time, tenant demand has remained at a considerably elevated level. This drove further rental price growth of 12% in H1, but we do expect year-on-year growth rates to normalise in H2, reflecting the economic backdrop and tenant affordability. The continued growth in the imbalance between supply and demand is at some of the highest levels we have ever seen. And it's also worth noting the impact of this dynamic on our operations. In London, lettings instructions are typically listed on a multi-agency basis. And in current market conditions, the speed of winning the instruction, then bringing to market and finally conducting viewings is critical to winning the deal. Through H1, we have significantly overhauled updated and optimised our lettings processes to deliver organic volume growth. This includes developing a new end-to-end digital lettings platform to launch in H2, which I will touch on later in the presentation. Turning now to slide eight and an update on our own performance versus the competition and the wider market. As you can see from the graph, the business has responded well to the reintroduction of estate agency culture focused on driving new instructions, which we began embedding soon after my arrival in September. And in H1, we grew our share of new lettings instructions by 8%. This is particularly pleasing as such rapid growth in lettings instructions is rare due to the nature of the lettings market and the general stickiness of landlords. We are the largest and fastest growing lettings agent in London, but still only control 5.8% of the market. highlighting the significant opportunity still available in the areas that we operate. And through our strategy of rebuilding operational capabilities to deliver organic growth and a well-established lettings acquisition strategy, I am extremely confident that we can continue to deliver growth. Turning now to slide nine and an update on the London sales market. The sales market was challenging in H1, driven by the impact of the September mini budget on by-demand at the beginning of the period, rapid growth in interest rates and the subsequent impact on mortgage rates and affordability, and further headwinds in new homes due to the withdrawal of the Help to Buy scheme. Against this backdrop, it will be unsurprising to see that exchange volumes in H1 were 24% lower in London than in the same period in 2022, and more akin to the levels seen in the market lows of 2019 and 2020 than the prior two years. the volume of newly agreed sales in H1 were 19% lower, which will impact exchange volumes across London in H2. In addition, pricing softened in H1 with exchanged prices dropping 3% as growing interest rates impacted affordability levels. A similar dynamic was also seen on the average price of new sold subject to contract properties or under offer properties in the market. And on slide 10, you can see our significant outperformance despite these challenging market conditions. Similar to lettings, the sales business responded very strongly to the new lead generation culture we are embedding and delivered an outstanding 43% increase in the share of new instructions coming to market. This performance was even more impressive in the light of the impact of the September 2022 mini budget, which led to a contraction of instructions across London. Very strong growth in our market share of new property instructions also delivered growth in the number of new buyer inquiries despite numbers falling in the wider market. And increased headcounts meant that we were able to consistently conduct record level of viewings across the year so far. This coupled with a focus on more proactively aligning prices with market conditions enabled us to agree a similar level of new sales to last year's much more buoyant market and rebuild our under-offer pipeline at the fastest rate in the last five years. Finally, a 15% market share growth in exchanges helped mitigate some of the reduction in market volumes. Whilst investment in the headcount capacity is a drag on profitability this year, it is also key to rebuilding our sales business and recapturing our leading agency position in our markets. I am pleased that we're already seeing this approach bearing fruit. Trading in July has remained robust as we exchanged deals in our under-offer pipeline, but an elevated and increased mortgage rates are leading to a softening of buy demand. We continue to monitor this very carefully in real time and will align our business with prevailing market conditions as required. And all decisions will be data led. I'll now pass over to Chris, who will run you through the financial review.

Thank you Guy and good morning everyone. I will start on slide 12 with an overview of financial performance. Revenue grew 9% to 70.9 million, primarily driven by strong growth in lettings that more than mitigated the impact of the challenging sales market that Guy has outlined. Adjusted operating profits increased to 6.8 million, an increase of 10% year on year. This is a robust results, noting the challenging sales market combined with the planned cost increases to rebuild fee and headcount, which has driven significant market share gains in the half. Adjusted operating profit margin increased by 11 basis points to 9.6%. And profit before tax grew 42% to 6.1 million, reflecting underlying profit growth no reorganisation costs being incurred this year and higher interest income. Net free cash flow was negative at £4.3 million, reflecting a planned £9 million working capital outflow in our lettings business as we introduce shorter billing periods for landlords opting to agree to longer tenancies. I'll talk to this point further later in the presentation. Finally, we maintained our interim dividend at 0.2 pence per share in line with our policy to deliver 35% to 40% of profits after tax as an ordinary dividend. Turning now to slide 13 on the adjusted operating profit walk, which sets out the key profit drivers in the half. Starting from the left-hand side of the chart, with the 6.2 million of adjusted operating profits were delivered in the first half of 2022. Underlying revenue, which excludes 2.7 million of incremental revenue from acquisitions, increased by 3.1 million or 5%. I will talk to the moving parts within revenue on the next slide. Variable staff commission charges were 0.5 million higher due to the increase in underlying revenue. We incurred an additional 3.6 million of costs as part of our strategy to rebuild our operational capabilities. The majority of this spend was incurred in increasing fee and headcount, reintroducing our branded vehicle fleet and delivering technology and data upgrades. These areas of investment drive market share improvement and support revenue growth. 2.2 million of cost savings benefited the half. These savings include lower branch operating costs, as we benefit from steps taken to streamline our branch property portfolio. We also benefited from senior management cost savings off the back of the reorganisation steps completed last year. These savings offset 1.4 million of inflationary cost pressures, which included wage inflation, branch and head office utilities, and general admin cost inflation. These movements resulted in 6 million of adjusted operating profit on a like-for-like basis. Finally, the two acquisitions completed in May 2022 and the Axon McLeod acquisition completed earlier in the year are performing in line with expectations and delivered 0.8 million of incremental profits in the half. After incorporating the acquisitions, adjusted operating profits for the half were 6.8 million compared to last year's 6.2 million, an increase of 10%. Turning now to slide 14 and segmental performance. In the half, revenues from non-cyclical and recurring activities, mainly lettings, comprised 73% of total revenue and enabled us to mitigate the impact of the weaker sales market. In lettings, revenue grew by 10.3 million to 49.8 million with lettings volumes up 3% and average revenue per transaction up 23%. A 10.3 million year on year increase comprised 5.6 million or 14% of organic revenue growth, 2.7 million of incremental revenues from the May 2022 acquisitions and the Atkins and McLeod acquisition and 2 million of additional interest income on tenants deposits. The organic revenue growth of 14% was driven by a number of key drivers. Firstly, an operational focus to secure longer tenancy terms, which has not only driven revenue growth, but will also improve retention of the portfolio over the medium term. Secondly, a continued focus on increasing the cross-sell of a higher value property management service, increasing the penetration of new deals under management by 21% year on year. And thirdly, a 12% year-on-year increase in average rents, reflecting a rental market where demand continues to outstrip supply, driving competition for rental properties. The operating leverage within the lettings business, alongside synergies delivered from acquisitions, resulted in 14.1 million of adjusted operating profits, a 93% year-on-year increase. Turning now to sales, Revenue decreased by 19%, primarily driven by a 15% decrease in exchange volumes compared to the more normalised market seen last year. The decline in exchange volumes is attributable to a lower pipeline at the start of the year, as well as significant increase in mortgage rates during the period. Average revenue per transaction was 4% lower, reflecting lower sold prices as sellers adjusted prices to match market dynamics. As Guy mentioned earlier, our 15% volume decline represented a good level of outperformance versus the market where sales volumes decreased by 24%. The reduced exchange volumes and planned investment in sales for year and a headcount, which typically takes 12 to 18 months to become fully productive, impacted profitability, resulting in an operating loss of 6.4 million. Encouragingly, The investment in fee-owner headcounts enabled us to significantly grow our market share of new sales agreed, which increased by 33% compared to the prior year. The new hires also enabled us to rapidly rebuild our under-offer pipeline, which we expect to convert to exchange revenue in the second half. The pipeline growth should also enable us to continue to outperform the market and mitigate some of the effects of the challenging sales market conditions. Finally, in financial services, revenue decreased 13% to 4.2 million, reflecting lower new purchase transaction volumes and smaller loan sizes, in line with wider sales market trends. A portfolio of non-cyclical refinance business, partially mitigated the impact of the purchase business headwinds. and aided by investments in advisor headcount, we delivered 29% growth in refinance volumes, as well as good growth in the cross-sell of ancillary products. Turning to group cashflow on slide 15, the business saw a net free cash outflow of 4.3 million, driven by planned working capital investments. Looking at the bridge on left-hand side, which starts with operating cash before working capital movements of 13.3 million. We had a planned nine million pound working capital outflow in the period. This outflow reflects lettings revenue outpacing cash collections as a result of the introduction of shorter billing periods for landlords opting to agree to longer tenancy terms. This initiative improves the competitiveness of our lettings proposition for landlords and importantly supports the retention and organic growth of the lettings portfolio over the medium term. Working capital flows are expected to normalize across 2024 as the portfolio continues to transition to shorter billing periods. Income tax paid in the period was 1.1 million. We made 6.3 million of lease payments in the period. And finally, capital expenditure was 1.4 million, primarily relating to branch upgrades and technology software developments, giving a total net free cash outflow of 4.3 million. In the period, we successfully refinanced the RCF with our existing lender, increasing the committed facility from 5 million to 20 million and extending the term to June, 2026. The enhanced RCF provides us with increased strategic flexibility to accelerate lettings growth including investments in working capital to drive organic growth, as well as delivering our lettings acquisition strategy. The terms of the RCF have remained materially the same as the previous facility and remains unsecured. Drawdowns on the facility accrue interest at Sonia plus 1.65%. Finally, moving to the opening to closing net cash bridge on the right hand side of the slide. We started the year with 12 million of net cash. As mentioned previously, we had a net free cash outflow of 4.3 million. We spent 6.3 million of cash on acquisitions and we returned a total of 3.3 million of cash to shareholders with 1.1 million returned through share buybacks and 2.1 million in dividends. These key movements drove the 14.1 million reduction over the course of the period. resulting in the 2.1 million net debt position at 30th of June. At 30th of June, the RCF was drawn down by 5 million, enabling us to manage our working capital position. I'll now hand back to Guy, who will take you through the operational and strategic update. Thank you, Chris.

As you will be aware, I undertook a forensic review of the business shortly after joining Foxton's, reviewing every single department and its operating model. In our 2022 results presentation in March, I set out the findings of my review, the upgrades required, and a refreshed strategy with tangible objectives and outcomes. I'm pleased to report that business has responded extremely well to the changes that we have made, and we are progressing strongly against our operational and strategic objectives as our turnaround gathers pace. On slide 17, we have laid out the areas of operational upgrade identified in March and our progress to date. To recap, the core operational upgrades can be grouped into four categories. Number one, data strategy. Number two, estate agency processes and culture. Number three, staffing levels and experience. And fourth, the Foxton's brand. Firstly, I was surprised by our low levels of data maturity, as subsequently confirmed by an external review that I'd asked Microsoft to carry out this year. Upgrading and future-proofing our capabilities is now a top priority for our data and IT teams. In H1, we built and fully implemented a new data reporting suite to provide real-time business KPIs at granular level alongside market intelligence. The suite has already been rolled out at all levels of the business and is already positively influencing employee behavior and supports the embedding of a high performance culture through managing our employees against new KPI measures and truly using data to drive the business forward. Secondly, we have reintroduced new machine learning algorithms to better identify and convert new lead opportunities from our unrivaled London database. This is a first in our industry. Foxton's possesses the largest database in London agency and upgrading our capabilities to those of a data-led business will position Foxton's as a leader in our sector and deliver high levels of differentiation and competitive advantage. As I mentioned earlier, property instructions are the lifeblood of a state agency and driving data innovation, optimization and usage alongside embedding a culture of being a data led organization is a core area of focus for me personally. Delivering industry innovation is a key element in rebuilding Foxton's DNA. And as mentioned earlier, we have spent much time identifying and developing new functionalities to modernize and digitalize many aspects of our business. We have seen particular progress in the lettings processes for landlords, tenants, and the Foxton's teams. We are well-progressed with the delivery of our new digital end-to-end rental solution, which is an industry first and has the potential to really accelerate our lettings growth. And I look forward to providing an update later in the year. Allied to updating our estate agency processes is rebuilding and updating our estate agency culture. The key here is not just to rediscover the high performing Foxton's culture of old, but to ensure that it is appropriate for the modern environment. and utilises our enormous competitive advantage of having our own bespoke industry-leading CRM completely in-house. Finally, we have overhauled our approach to training, reintroducing a comprehensive in-person ongoing training programme to support the development of industry-leading expertise. In H1, our learning and development team delivered over 1,100 hours of in-person training, a tenfold increase from the level prior to my arrival. As mentioned earlier, understaffing of our fee earners was a significant driver of underperformance over the past few years. We've grown fee earner headcount by 16% in sales and lettings and by 21% in financial services. Despite the short-term impact to profitability, this was a key contributor to our outperformance in H1, particularly driving sales market share and financial services volume growth in challenging markets. Not only did we have to grow fee earner headcounts, but also fix the unacceptably high staff turnover rate that was observed prior to my arrival. High staff turnover drives low tenure, insufficient experience is built up, which then results in low productivity, further detracting from the culture and performance of our sales force. Good progress is being made here, with staff retention increasing 16% in the period. Finally, our marketing capabilities and performance were degraded, with once prominent brand becoming almost invisible and the customer proposition confused. At the end of last year, we made good progress, including a new brand position, We Get It Done, and introducing the iconic branded minis to the streets of London, which I'm sure many of you will have seen driving around building high levels of brand awareness for a relatively low additional cost. In H1, we continued our rebuilding of our marketing capabilities, including the hiring of an experienced new marketing director with a remit to rapidly grow market share through overhauling our marketing approach. And these changes are already working, with good growth in customer consideration as measured through property valuations and instructions and increasing renter and buyer registrations. Turning now to slide 18. In March, we presented our refocus strategy alongside tangible objectives to deliver our growth ambition. To deliver 25 to 30 million pounds of profit over the medium term. Emphasis is on growing non-cyclical and reoccurring revenue streams in lettings and financial services to enhance the group's earnings resilience alongside returning sales to profitability in the longer term. I'm pleased to report that we're making good progress here. Lettings, we are targeting three to 5% of organic growth per annum supplemented by our acquisitive growth from good levels of returns from our lettings acquisition strategy. As already shown, we are able to significantly outperform here. Lettings organic revenue grew by 14% as operational upgrades drove new instruction market share growth and higher average revenues per transaction through considerably improving the cross-sell of our property management service and securing longer tenancy lengths. Regarding acquisition growth, we completed the purchase of Atkinson McLeod in March, and we rapidly integrated the business into our operating platform to begin to deliver revenue and cost synergies. The acquisition and integration was completed at a speed not normally seen in our sector. Atkinson McLeod is a great business and I've been very impressed by the calibre and quality of colleagues who've moved across to us. As Chris mentioned, our prior acquisitions continue to deliver returns ahead of our minimum expectations. We have a good pipeline of future acquisition opportunities and this remains an area where further investments will continue to deliver higher returns. In sales, focuses on returning the business to profitability at all points in the sales market cycle, through rapidly improving market share in our core markets. As previously mentioned, we are delivering change at pace here, with strong growth in our market share of exchange deals and new properties sold subject to contract or under offer. Finally, In financial services, we will better maximize the revenue opportunity from estate agency referrals from within the group and target delivery of revenue growth of 7% to 10% per annum. Unsurprisingly, revenues were lower in H1 due to unprecedented turmoil in the mortgage market. However, investments in advisor headcounts and operational upgrades delivered outperformance as we grew total volumes driven by a 29% increase in refinance volumes. In addition, the business achieved record levels of protection cross-sell in H1. Crucially, the benefits of our strategy can clearly be seen on slide 19 with the following standout trends. We have delivered year on year growth in operating profits through highly challenging sales market conditions. We have grown our portfolio of non-cyclical and reoccurring revenues which has significantly decoupled our earnings from the sales market cycle. As the comparison to 2019 illustrates well, we delivered an operating profit of £6.8 million in this half versus the near £1 million loss in the first half of 2019, despite a similar level of sales market volumes and the drag on profitability from our investments this year. A result we believe shows very solid progress against our plan. Turning now to slide 21 and a summary of our performance and some thoughts on July trading and outlook for the year. Operational upgrades are being implemented at pace and supported a higher level of business outperformance in H1 against a highly challenging market backdrop. The sales business turnaround is well underway. with strong levels of market share growth in the period. Lettings delivered good levels of organic growth supplemented by our well-established acquisition programme. The group's strategy is to prioritise growth in this area of the business to continue to enhance our earnings resilience. The majority of our tech investment and innovation is focused here, and I look forward to the rollout of our new Lettings digital platform over the next couple of months and providing you with an update later in the year. Finally, operational and financial delivery in H1 means that we are progressing well to our medium term profit ambitions. Now looking to July trading and outlook for the year. Lettings delivered further growth in July as the trends we saw in H1 continued. I expect this momentum to remain, particularly as we enter the peak letting season but looking ahead, we do expect year-on-year rental price growth rates to moderate. In sales, exchange volumes in July were ahead of the H1 2023 run rate, as deals in our under-offer pipeline converted into revenue. This dynamic is expected to continue through Q3. However, the continued rise in interest rates and impact on the mortgage markets is beginning to cascade down and finally impact buy-demand which softened in July for the first time this year. The market remains challenging, and it's difficult to predict future buy demand with so much uncertainty in interest rates over the next 12 months. Weaker buy demand may also impact exchange volumes in Q4, but continuing to win market share should mitigate some of this impact. And finally, in financial services, purchase volumes and loan sizes will track the wider sales market But we will mitigate the majority of this impact through our high quality, reoccurring refinance business. This concludes the formal presentation. Thank you all so much for joining us today. Chris and I look forward to meeting with many of you in the coming weeks, and I will now pass back to the operator for any questions you may have.