Up Up and away for OnTheMarket
“…Revenue up, cash up. We’re on a phase of our growth which is unprecedented…”
For investors comfortable with the industry abbreviations of fintech, medtech, healthtech, there’s another to add to the techy tech checklist with ‘proptech’ emerging as the embodiment of property portal OnTheMarket.
This majority agent-owned, residential property portal provider sounds long winded, but the constant theme can be condensed to one word. Inclusion. Inclusion not just from the agents who choose to list their stable of properties exclusively on the site, which at the last count was almost 1000, but at board level.
It’s a canny score board for a portal that’s operating in the maelstrom of pandemic, inflation, interest rate rise threats, an alleged available property squeeze and valuation conundrums.
Circling back to the theme of inclusiveness, Chief financial officer Clive Beattie was interim chief executive in addition to CFO for nine months in 2020. It was assumed that he had applied for the permanent position, but this is besides the point because his handover to current CEO Jason Tebb was seamless.
Some handovers have an element of ‘over to you’ finality. What is happening at OnThe Market is the stuff of corporate harmony. Not quite a romance, but a relationship that marriage guidance and corporate restructurers are paying attention to. The mentor, the motivator, the remodeller are applicable to both Tebb and Beattie as they combine their strengths to develop the platform. They are establishing a reputation for their blend of emotional intelligence and financial acumen and they’re having fun doing so.
Tebb is the voice that announces the great reveal about the brand refresh and the upcoming media campaign. Though with ambitions about further bolt on acquisitions, it’s unlikely the company will go mad on their marketing and spoil what is already a good business. Coca Cola, remember, learned the hard way when it changed its recipe. This is unlikely to happen with OnTheMarket which is providing a service on multiple fronts built on foundations of trust. It’s also scouting for value add additions such as May’s Glanty acquisition, so the current cash balance of close to £10 million is spoken for in terms of bolt ons and potential dividends.
For the consumer there’s the content about how landlords are dealing with the proliferation of pandemic dog ownership and the ‘what’s your property worth’ application. For the investor there is a plethora of communication about the company’s strategy, and for the stakeholder agents there’s a presence on a digital and dynamic platform. To use a cliche, this company listens and the agents in their testimonials repeat this time and time again.
Listen to Jason and Clive gently and affirmatively educate Sarah Lowther about the difference in the business models of industry recognised brands, what the key differentiators are and the solution to the disaggregation in the property market.
Watch Jason and Clive present their investment case to Proactive London’s Katie Pilbeam
Watch Jason and Clive discuss their interims and answer some quite different questions with Mello Virtual
Follow the company on Twitter – @OTMplc
Read the corporate presentation
Access OnTheMarket’s sentiment index
The author was remunerated but does not hold shares in the company
