The full-year results at Zoopla Property Group PLC (LON:ZPLA) made for good reading for its investors, with the underlying numbers revealing a strong performance.
Adjusted underlying earnings were up 58% to £77.1mln for the year to September (2015: £48.7mln), on increased revenues of £197.7mln (2015: 107.6mln).
City broker Liberum was also pretty happy with the results as it reiterated its ‘buy’ recommendation for the stock, as well as its target price of 415p.
“We remain positive on their strategy and we think their strong 2016 performance is a sign of things to come,” said Liberum’s Ian Whittaker.
“Zoopla has grown the number of property partners using both their portal and software product by 5% and have won another 100 estate agents back from OnTheMarket, clearly showing the strategy is working.”
The online property group also used today’s results release to announce the acquisition of estate agency website designer Technicweb for an initial £1.5mln, a deal which Whittaker also praised.
“Technicweb is] the number one provider of cloud-based website design and hosting for the estate agency industry.
This acquisition continues Zoopla’s strategy of targeting these additional revenue opportunities outside of pure listings that we feel Rightmove Group PLC (LON:RMV) has a choke-hold on.”
Shares were up 6% on Wednesday afternoon to 338p.