Debt-ridden Countrywide insists it will re-set itself after disastrous retail strategy

Countrywide has declared that it will re-set itself the disastrous ‘retail’ strategy which was the hallmark of Alison Platt’s time in office.

Its annual report is introduced by executive chairman Peter Long, who has effectively taken over her role in the interim.

Long savages the ‘retail’ approach saying: “The restructuring of the Group in 2015 assumed that sales and lettings was a single retail business and a retailer was recruited to lead this area.”

He says this policy, which led to the recruitment of Sam Tyrer from Carphone Warehouse, was wrong. Tyrer, who also designed Countrywide’s digital offering which, along with its ‘retail’ philosophy has also been reversed, left last summer.

The annual report also spells out the cost of redundancies over the last two years, but Countrywide’s biggest problem appears to be its debt.

During 2016, when the ‘retail’ experiment was at its height, the bill in respect of “associated redundancy” costs was £8,109,000.

Last year, a further £7.9m was spent “in respect of redundancy costs and cost optimisation”.

The AGM, on April 25, is likely to be a lively affair with shareholders being presented with several sets of figures.

These include sales of 41,722 homes last year, well down on the 50,362 of 2016, with 62,646 properties under management compared with 65,352 in 2016.

The numbers exclude the London market, where Countrywide sold 8,778 homes (down from 10,951 in 2016) and managed 26,644 properties, up from 2016’s 25,792.

Countrywide’s annual report for last year is headed “Resetting, Refocusing, Responding”.

It also reveals that the business now has a network of over 850 branches – although Countrywide’s own website seems to talk about the past with its reference to  “1,200 locations across the UK”.

(http://www.countrywide.co.uk/)

However, the report also refers to “approximately” 649 sales and lettings branches. The business confirms it saw an increased level of staff churn last year.

The report says that “replacing this expertise is a key area of focus”.

Long, who says that this year has started with a management change and a recovery plan, warns: “2018 will not be an easy year for the Group as we strategically reset the business.”

The report, which notes that Platt resigned on January 24 this year, says that Long will receive a fee of £180,000 from that date in recognition of his executive role, on top of the £180,000 he gets as non-executive chairman.

The total amount is fixed, regardless of whether Long under-achieves, meets or over-achieves on targets.

The report says that Platt earned £575,000 in both 2016 and 2017, plus further pay taking her total to £676,000 in both years.

As a non-executive director for Tesco, she retained a fee of £84,500.

  • Countrywide has also announced the departure of Dan Channer, of Finders Keepers in Oxford, which was sold to Countrywide in 2016. He leaves next month and will be succeeded by Paul Rushworth.

 

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47 Comments

  1. dompritch134

    What happened to the new editor Neil Gerrard?

     

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    1. Elmer Fudd

      Even for you that’s a bit random, like the kid at the back of the classroom who’s not realised maths is over and we’re doing English

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      1. dompritch134

        When did he leave?

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        1. PeeBee

          Why?  are you missing the grammatical errors?

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          1. dompritch134

            He only joined in January, and there has been no mention of him leaving. Just curious that is all.

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            1. Bless You

              Sounds a bit like a pb lister who realised getting paid upfront is criminal

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    2. PeeBee

      What has that got chunk of random ******** to do with the price of eggs, dom-boy?

      Clearly, your hinges have separated.  Time to leave the big playground and go back to where that comfortable place where you can feel all fuzzy and warm…

      …and somewhat equal.

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      1. dompritch134

        Simple enough question, but as usual you chime in with your rambling nonsense. 

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        1. PeeBee

          You just posted it here to validate a future claim that you don’t dump your waste matter on only Purple-related articles.

          We’ve got your measure, dom-boy.

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          1. MrLister

            dom’s is right PeeBee.

            He just asked a question.

            It doesn’t seem to take much on here to get the insults flying in an instant. As I’ve also found out!

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            1. Bless You

              I never get insulted but tbf Iam not a ppricks rat.

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            2. PeeBee

              …and stating that someone loses credibility because their own research proves that only 15% of their viewing requests come from portals isn’t an insult in the least, of course…
              You three really crack me up.
              Sorry – you FOUR – if you count your alternative identity that is, ‘P J’…

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    3. AgentQ73

      Hi Dom

      I left a response on one of your comments yesterday but you probably missed it as it was late, please see below

      dompritch134
      MARCH 21, 2018 AT 16:02
      Because investors which read industry comments such as this, deserve to have a balanced view, not just the bitter ramblings of obsessive anonymous posters as above.

      Leave a Reply
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      (1)(0)

      AgentQ73
      MARCH 21, 2018 AT 17:25
      I would be gobsmacked if any investors based their investment decisions on an industry forum such as this ? But i stand to be corrected.
      Do you post on a wide variety of industry forums then ? I would guess hotel forums are just as vitriolic about air BNB, taxi/ private hire about UBER, retailers about amazon, publicans about loss leading beer promotions in supermarkets, farmers about Tesco, local solicitors about conveyancing warehouses etc etc
      Which prompts the question why defend PB in particular ?

       

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      1. Room101

        Sorry to pitch in on your post AgentQ73, but my question wasn’t answered either and is at least on the topic of your thread.

        Room101
        MARCH 21, 2018 AT 15:41
        cyberduck46 / dompritch134
        Why are the two biggest fans of PB not shareholders?
        Speaks volumes!

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        1. dompritch134

          I dip in and out, I bought yesterday at 293p.

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          1. Beano200062

            Wow Brilliant! virtually the lowest price pb shares have been for 10 months and there you are snapping up the shares, just before they rise again! You really are special aren’t you…

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      2. dompritch134

        Private investors will research trade press for information on firms, comments made to articles are made often from people within the industry and helps with research.

        I’m not saying PI will base any decisions on this but it’s additional information.

         

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        1. AgentQ73

          Given that this forum genrally only gives one point of view and that point of view from the status quo about a newcomer in my opinion any investor basing investment desicions on it would be extremely foolish. But i accept i dont trade shares and know little about it.
          The questions of why defend just Purplebricks though, remains unanswered  ?

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          1. Room101

            Dom & Duck a balanced review for your PI chums who are researching purple bricks.

            https://uk.trustpilot.com/reviews/5ab280fa6d33bc073c50d2be

            Nico
            7 reviews
            Verified order
            Published 25 hours ago Updated 95 minutes ago

            Big waste of time and money
            Purple Bricks didn’t want you to read this review. They immediately flagged it as not ‘genuine’ – with zero proof – and it was removed from Trust Pilot. I had to have multiple emails with Trust Pilot – providing 3 different pieces of proof and saying I would bring in the Trading Standards Authority – to get it reinstated. Funny that, as I see tons of 5* reviews for Purple Bricks on here which are unverified by Trust Pilot.

            ***Short version:*** I think traditional estate agents are grossly overpaid. And I wanted PB to work so badly (both to save money but also to change a broken industry). But after a really poor experience – first using PB, then using a traditional agent for the same property – I realised that estate agents are at least financially incentivised to sell your property. Purple Bricks are financially incentivised to sell their service. And once they have done, there is no incentive to lift a finger. Especially as they seem to silence negative reviews.

            ***Longer version:*** I had a straightforward property to sell in London. No chain, no weird lease, great condition, desirable area, etc. I thought PB sounded great, and an agent who came by promised loads of stuff. We signed up and paid immediately. None of the promises proved true in our case: Viewings: The agent claimed she and a colleague knew the area really well and would do the viewings, so we paid extra for that. The very first viewing she messaged to say she’d been in a car accident and would be 20 minutes late. A car accident that makes you 20 minutes late? Seriously? So we had to be late for work and do it ourselves. After that there were a few where some agent we didn’t even know apparently did the viewings. And as we got no feedback from the agent, we just started doing the viewings ourselves.

            Platform: We were told the platform was amazing. But it was hugely limiting in three ways. First, you have to enter an address, not an area, and that is used on all other sites. We had a postal address on a busy street but a much nicer entrance on a quiet side street with a garden. Viewers kept being mailed to go to the busy main entrance, and it ruined the viewings.

            Secondly, the system also only lets you take the property down for just under 90 days. If your property doesn’t sell with a traditional agent they will take it down (over Christmas holidays, for example) and post it again in early spring. That way property sites show it as a ‘new’ property. Standard stuff. You can’t do this with Purple Bricks, though, so your property always shows as having been for sale forever. Which puts browsers off immediately (and one viewer even told us exactly that).

            Thirdly, they claimed it was easy for people to leave feedback (which means they don’t have to bother getting it). But viewers almost never do, so we were left with few viewings and no feedback from them.

            Marketing: The agent told us they’d do extensive ‘marketing’ of the property. They did nothing. They posted it on a few property sites and then just sat back. We got so few viewings, while another flat in our building using a high street agent was getting at least 3 viewings a week. The only marketing she did was to tell us to lower the price repeatedly. After a year we removed it from Purple Bricks and used an agent in our area. She got us an offer (that we accepted) in 2.5 weeks.

            We’d lost all the money we paid PB, as well as a year – in which time prices went down – and we still paid for an agent.

            P.S. I assumed we’d been unlucky. But then I heard so many similar tales from neighbours and in online forums elsewhere. So I tried to post a review here on Trust Pilot. And I learned how hard Purple Bricks make it for people to post critical and honest reviews about them, and it all became clear to me. Rotten stuff.

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      3. cyberduck46

        AgentQ73,

         

        There are many types of investors but if somebody is investing a lot of money in a company they would be foolish to ignore any claims being made that could affect that investment because they might be true. Also it might not be true but it could still have an effect.

         

        >I would be gobsmacked if any investors based their investment decisions on an industry forum such as this ?

         

        Is that because you don’t trust Estate Agents?

         

        When I first came here it was after being directed here by another investor. He was posting on an investment forum about not being able to trust PurpleBricks’ figures in Zoopla and the implication was that the figures were being deliberately manipulated.

         

        I came across here to have a look and you can see my questions here http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/rayhans-proptech-news-whyy-purplebricks-is-the-story-that-keeps-on-giving/.

         

        One particular response from PeeBee had me very concerned. “Oh, mon ami…
        …you have NO IDEA how big the can of worms you have just opened is going to get!”

        Of course now that I know he doesn’t even trust Estate Agents himself, lacks objectivity and has little idea of how things work in real life I can ignore such comments but it was a concern for me at the time and there was nobody around questioning his claims.

        There is a lot of misinformation on here (queue the childish responses) and it is misleading for anyone from the public and for investors. Something really should be done about it but I’m not naive enough to think that’s going to happen any time soon.

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        1. davehedgehog

          Mr Duck,

          I will give it one last go to make you understand why we don’t like PB.

          A lot of us on here are proud of our profession and will do all we can to stand up for it and make it better.

          To put it into perspective, 2 years ago a local family run independent (with 10 offices) opened up in my town. According to Rightmove they currently have 11% of the local market stock, in my area PB have .9%.

          I don’t slate this new company, basically, because they are very good and very efficient, if I am involved in a chain with this company, I know when i call them I will get a good sales update (in turn I can give my vendor a good update which makes me look like a good agent) and between us we often can get an iffy sale through to completion and I will get my commission.

          Unfortunately, this can’t be said of PB, I am being completely honest with you here, they are a nightmare to deal with, no callbacks, no assistance, no experience etc etc. Three of my sales collapsed last year due to their inadequacy and buyers/owners losing patience.

          You’re naivety is due to you not having to deal with this company day in day out. I would love you to sit next to me when I attempt a sales progression call to a PB LPE or their incompetent conveyancing firm. I think then you might change your mind. There’s an idea, how about asking one of your local E/A if you can do just that if you don’t believe me.

          Having PB in a chain makes us all look incompetent and this is the problem and this is why we don’t like them, in my area, PB are pretty much a non-entity, I don’t fear them at all but I do put my head in my hands whenever they are involved in one of my chains.   I hope you understand, I am not being bitter or nasty, just honest.

           

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          1. htsnom79

            And in addition, if I may, the reason that they have the traction that they do is that they have lots of little 0.9% market shares everywhere so they don’t get the terrible reputation that they deserve at a local level, any agent with an 11% market share locally wouldn’t keep it at their standard of performance or culture they’d get eaten alive, see Countrywide as they switched from doing it properly to doing it wrong

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          2. PeeBee

            davethehedgehog (and htsnom79)

            Two excellent posts… wasted on the intended audience.

            They will no doubt be regarded as – and referred to as – disingenuous.

            You cannot change the mindset where there is no mind to change.

            It’s ALL about agenda.  Your words don’t fit.

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            1. davehedgehog

              Thank you Peebee, My post is just honest and due to no response I intend to post it every time the deadly duo post on this site until they do……PS its Davehedgehog, not davethehedgehog, google him….from my favourite comedy

               

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              1. PeeBee

                davehedgehog

                Apologies for the misnomer.  I knew I’d get to the Bottom of the name… eventually!

                Okay – apologies also for that attempt at Chris Woodesque humour!

                ducky can not and will not understand your passion – or anyone’s for that matter.  Mores to the point – the agenda he is working to will not allow acknowledgement or acceptance of of your clearly genuine motives.

                A year ago his words to me were that it was “good to hear of your motives” when I explained my interest in the apparent conduct and operating methods of PB and a host of various other Agencies.  Advance the clock twelve short months – any appreciation is out of the window and his every effort is being directed towards damaging any credibility I may or may not have with the EYE audience.

                To be frank I give 5h!t not one – if he, dom-boy and any others they care to bring into the playground are calling me names they’re leaving other good people alone.

                They can huff and puff at my walls all they like.

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                1. PeeBee

                  davehedgehog

                  In my rush to post this last night before ‘Birds of a Feather’ – and I don’t mean the t!t-muppet trio there by the way – I omitted to mention that, as is evident here on EYE, several others whose heinous act of questioning the conduct of certain people and Agencies and thereby standing firm for the good of our industry as a whole and its’ customers have been systematically targeted by these individuals also.

                  I can hide behind my cloak of relative invisibility – slurs mean nothing when thrown at an anonymous character called ‘PeeBee’.  They can chuck as much 5h!t at my fan as they think they have to sling – and then some.

                  Some of my esteemed colleagues in industry do not have such comfort and frankly the 5h!t they are having slung at them should stand as clear evidence to all of the true colour (and we al know what colour that is…) of the perpetrators.

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        2. AgentQ73

          I dont trust estate agents any more or less than anybody else. I just find it hard to believe that anybody with more than half a brain cell would base investment decisions on this forum and i cant believe you or Dom think that anyone would which makes me wonder why you both defend Purplebricks but no other companies (that I am aware of)?

          If you are crusaders for the truth and objectivity in order to inform potential investors I haven’t seen you challenge any of Purplebricks claims or their lack of transparency. Both yourself and Dom seem to be as Pro Purplebricks ad the vast majority of posters are anti. I can see the motivation in the posters being Anti PB but i cant for the life of me understand why you and Dom invest so much time and effort in supporting PB ?

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          1. davehedgehog

            Both spot on…… the silence is deafening.

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          2. Beano200062

            Duck is obsessed with their shares and posts on shares sites stating same, Dom obviously has a close connection perhaps a partner or family member is a LPE of PB. Between them they also love the act of trolling; that is spending vast amount of (relative) time posting comments in favour of PB on a site where 99.9% of the regulars have very good reason to dislike them (dishonest marketing in addition to the above points)….

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          3. PeeBee

            AgentQ73
            My post above, to dth and hts… is equally pertinent to your above attempt at extracting reasoned debate from the ducky’n’dom-boy duo.
            Superb effort – wasted, sadly.

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        3. PeeBee

          ducky

          Apologies for not responding earlier to your reference to myself.

          You earn ten out of ten for alternative fact.  It’s therefore understandable why you have such an affinity for your #Fanboy fave company – although the ASA have a good record of being able to modify their ‘facts’ to something at least slightly closer to reality.  I guess they are taking baby steps and all that rather than blindly leaping the void of difference.

          It also makes a kind of skewed sense why you come here so often – even if the vast majority of the civilised world (and a majority chunk of the uncivilised bit) would raise many, many questions as to the depth, intensity and highly questionable reasoning behind your #bunnyboiler obsessiveness – which you have often stated is posted in order to give investors “a balanced view”.

          SO… let’s just do exactly that – and give investors something to make their informed decision on, shall we?

          Let’s call it ‘duckyfact’.

          You paid PurpleBricks an amount of money to sell a property that, at the time, was your home.  That was, from memory, in early January last year.  (By the way – feel free to correct me on any points I’m off-base on.)

          Also from memory, you paid upfront – so let’s assume (based upon your previous comments that you’re a bit of a control freak) that you paid the basic fee only at the time of £798… none of this £300 ‘Assisted Viewings’ add-on malarkey.  But all of your upfront payment went straight into their coffers without a detour via to Close Brothers who would shave some of that off to cover the NOT loan ‘facility’.

          And you probably also had your own Solicitor so PurpleBricks didn’t score a kickback from the deal that way either.

          SO…

          You listed at an asking Price – which we will call Figure ‘A’.

          You reduced your Asking Price to ‘Figure B’ – a reduction of something like 4%, again from memory.

          You reduced to ‘Figure C’.

          You reduced to ‘Figure D’ – we are now ten percent below the original Asking Price.

          Now – at some point either before or after this point in the transaction history, you accepted an offer from a prospective buyer.  The property was marked ‘SSTC’ (which is not only normal – but also a legal requirement) – but for some reason best known to yourself and your Agent, disappeared off the face of the earth for anyone doing a Zoopla search*.  Unfortunately, the would-be buyer subsequently withdrew from the transaction.  It happens – and, as you know, according to some sources up to one third of agreed sales fail to exchange and complete.

          The property was re-marketed (and duly reappeared on Zoopla), and a second ‘sale’ was agreed, which did proceed to exchange, and completed at the end of October.

          At this point I will state for the record that nine months from start to finish is, by no means, an unrealistic timeframe for such a transaction.  The property was ‘unusual’ in form and nature; the price bracket well above the local and national average – so the buyer pool was somewhat reduced from what I often refer to as ’27 Acacia Avenue’.

          As far as you are concerned, your Agent effectively ‘did what it said on the tin’.  You paid for a ‘sale’ – you got one.  You have stated on several occasions that you were not unhappy with the way things panned out.  We have no other choice than to accept your word on that point.

          But the sale that eventually terminated your ownership of that property was concluded at 95.7% of your stated Asking Price – and amounted to only 86.15% of the original Asking Price.

          I don’t know of many homeowners who would take 13.85% less than their home was ‘valued’ at.  I don’t know that many homeowners who could accept such a significant lump less, to be honest.

          And quite frankly I certainly don’t know of many that should – unless their “expert” advisor had got it sadly, badly, wrong….

          …or the homeowner’s expectations of what someone else would be prepared to pay for their property were orbiting somewhere in the upper stratosphere – in which case the ride back down to reality will be very uncomfortable.

          And on the basis that according to Nationwide, property values actually increased by somewhere in the region of 2.5% in the region it is located, I’m not sure where you would like to apportion blame for what appears to be a sixteen percent reduction in your ‘investment’.

          That ball’s firmly in your court, ducky.

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  2. J1

    Clearly the cost of getting rid of good folk who have done nothing wrong is very high.

    Perhaps it’s time to re-recruit some of them?

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  3. Nick Salmon, M.D. Property Industry Eye

    Quite what the question has to do with this story is lost on me, but since it has been asked, here’s the answer.

    Neil decided the role was not suitable for him and left last week.

    He was never editor, he was editor-designate which indicates it was anticipated he would take over the position of editor at an indeterminate point in the future.

    Ros Renshaw is and always has been editor of EYE. She is continuing in that position.

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    1. Robert May

      That’s a shame, I liked his style and his stories.

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    2. Bless You

      I love eye but in future you must keep Dom of the Bailey up to date with your staff movements….. Iam surprised he didn’t ask question after the pb share price 20% drop this week… fake Russian style to avert investors 

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  4. Philosopher2467

    People come and people go.

    What i’d really like to know, based on this article is, who/whom decided on the ‘retail’ strategy (loose term) that has all but destroyed Countrywide? Or; is this a little ‘smoke & mirrors’ to allow Ali Pali & (not so) Super Sam, off the hook and employable at some juncture??

    who was/is the ‘MORON’ that came up with that little gem of a plan?????

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    1. Bless You

      She got 500,000 to kill a business…different work. Why isn’t that all being clawed back??? Until boards are made to have at least a few members of staff who actually do the work sitting on the board with votes this disgusting behaviour will keep on happening.
      Moral of story..only work for a private company. Public ones have no conscience.

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    2. P-Daddy

      The frightening thing is that no one learns from history. Prudential, Lloyds under the banner Black Horse Agencies and the building societies all piled in advocating the retail principle i.e. any one who walks through your door ( as that was what happened before the internet) should be seen with a £ sign over their head and should be cross referred and sold a myriad of services and products all of which were needed to buy a house. Mortgage, survey, insurance etc. Billions were wasted and all fell by the wayside. Countrywide thrived along with a few other corporates as they built the agency based model with spin offs and bought chains for £1 from the banks and building societies. Platt you are a prat.. Countrywide you are …oops nearly said it! 🙂

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      1. hodge

        Your an idiot, sorry. All of these insurance companies and Banks etc are still dining out on the new customer  sales as they have a client for life.

        Term assurance is an insurers most profitable contract and they were sold in the millions. Mortgage lending and the GI that went with it as well as current accounts , overdrafts etc made them millions. Agency was just a vehicle to get them.

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        1. GeorgeHammond78

          Er….? remind me how much Lloyds bank have coughed up on PPI claims. Same principle hodge………

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          1. hodge

            The agency never sold PPI they sold MPPI totally different

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            1. P-Daddy

              This a comment about the financial services industry and the retail principle in estate agency Hodge…where are their chains now and how many £100’s of millions were written off…

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              1. hodge

                Where are the chains now.  lloyds Abbey, Haifax, Nationwide are doing very well.  You see they converted to being banks rather than B/S so they can grow quicker. During an attempted buyout many of us were summoned in to Abbey HQ and the accountant explained that even if we made 20 million profit they could quadruple that just by delaying a rate drop on savings or not passing to on to borrowers, Agency is small beans.  The big banks as they now are just found another way to get new clients. They bought each other out.

                 

                writing off 100 million is nothing to them when you compare to say Barclays 1.882 billion for qtr 1 in 17

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  5. MrLister

    Platt did.

    That’s what happens when you get a non estate agent to run a firm of estate agents.

    Selling houses is not and never will be retail.

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  6. hodge

    All those who blamed Alison Platt for the retail debacle can apologise now, come on lets hear it.

     

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    1. ARC

      Au contraire:

      “He says this policy, which led to the recruitment of Sam Tyrer from Carphone Warehouse, was wrong. Tyrer, who also designed Countrywide’s digital offering which, along with its ‘retail’ philosophy has also been reversed, left last summer.”

      Platt recruited Tyrer to lead her ‘retail’ dream the only people this attempts to exonerate is Tyrer and conveniently Mr Long as well!

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  7. DarrelKwong43

    These chair “persons”, or what every you want to call them, a very similar to football managers

    destroy one club, then someone else will employ them on mega bucks

     

    Report
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