Purplebricks bosses win gold - and it’s nothing to do with the Olympics

Almost a million shares in Purplebricks have been ‘awarded’ to the two most senior men in the organisation.

The golden handcuff deal means chief executive Vic Darvey gets 735,437 option shares and chief finance officer Andy Botha gets 307,500.

They can be cashed in after three years subject to the pair still being at the agency and meeting performance thresholds.

One threshold is likely to be Purplebricks achieving a 10 per cent market share: the most recent assessment, by property consultancy TwentyCi, put Purplebricks at around five per cent and all hybrid agencies combined at under nine per cent.

Two weeks ago Darvey announced he was launching what he called “Purplebricks 2.0” after achieving “the right management team, right strategy and right technology to continue to grow the business.”

That strategy included a new ‘no sale, money back’ pricing policy - subject to strict rules for the vendor - and an increased emphasis by the agency on proving its local connections.

There will be a local marketing blitz for the hybrid after the Olympics; Purplebricks is engaged in a huge national marketing connected with the games, which begin on Friday.

The next marketing campaign will take the form of local TV and radio advertisements emphasising the regions in which they are broadcast, naming key cities and territories where the agency’s Local Property Experts are based. 

However, the agency’s share price has not been setting records: so far this year it peaked at £1.10p but now languishes at below 70p.