Ambitious growth plans into the eastern states and South-East Asia are behind a plan by Australia’s only independent real estate search website, aussiehome.com, to list on the ASX later this year.
Ambitious growth plans into the eastern states and South-East Asia are behind a plan by Australia’s only independent real estate search website, aussiehome.com, to list on the ASX later this year.
Following a management restr-ucture last month, which led to co-founder Nick Streuli exiting the company, the Nedlands-based online property portal is set to conduct its $5 million initial public offering in October.
aussiehome.com director and co-founder, Charlie Gunningham, said that after years of receiving what he believed to be undervalued offers for the company, the decision to list was both a defensive and offensive strategy.
“[The IPO is] part defensive in that it makes us more expensive to be taken over, and part offensive because it gives us money to do what we want to do,” he told WA Business News.
Mr Gunningham said the listing also gave aussiehome.com's real estate agent clients, some of whom had previously expressed interest in investing, a chance to buy in to the company.
Already with a presence in Jakarta through its iproperti.com site, the company will be seeking funds to further expand into Singapore and Hong Kong with partner Transparence Group via its hotproperty.com real estate portal.
Mr Gunningham also hinted at the possibility of making further acquisitions after the IPO, and rolling out the business model Australia-wide, either through a licensing agreement or by establishing sales offices in capital cities on the east cost.
He is confident the funds raised will enable the company to take advantage of the growing shift from print to online.
“Everyone accepts that it’s all going online, whether they’re on ours or other home sites,” he said.“You can still be in The West Australian, or the Western Suburbs Weekly, or The Post…but make it less big, less often.
“People are coming on the net first.”
The company, which celebrated its seventh birthday last Christmas, has about 170 real estate agent clients in WA, which equates to about one-third of the independent boutique real estate market in the state.
The flagship site, which was re-launched two weeks ago, receives on average 320,000 visits per month, and currently showcases 5,000 properties for sale or rent in WA and 430 in Victoria, with 50 properties in Jakarta currently listed on iproperty.com.
Mr Gunningham said he was comfortable with making the transition from a private to a public company, and the associated governance and disclosure requirements.
“We’ve basically run it now like a mini public company,” he said.
“Because we’ve been paying dividends, having AGMs etc, nothing scares me about the move. We were disciplined from the beginning.”
Listed dot.coms have become a rarity since the dot.com crash in 2000, and even more so among WA-based companies.
aussiehome.com will be entering a space dominated by national brand names, encompassing mainly online job search, property, media, travel and share trading companies, which work off a purely online model.
Mr Gunningham said the fact the company was still around and consistently growing was testament to the success of its business model.
“The [dot.coms] that have survived have a track record. They’re still here and growing and have expansion plans,” he said.
Mr Gunningham will hold a 16 per cent stake in the listed company.
