Agency heavyweight joins property investment PropTech platform

One of the biggest names in agency has been appointed as chairperson of the board at BidX1, one of Europe’s leading digital property investment platforms.

Grenville Turner, formerly CEO of Countrywide, a founding director of Rightmove and a past director of Zoopla, has more than 40 years of experience in retail banking, the property sector, and online businesses.

He was CEO of Countrywide, at the time the UK’s largest estate agency, from 2007 to 2014, during which time he took the Group private and subsequently oversaw its return to the public market in 2013 as part of a £1 billion-plus IPO.

Before that, Turner held several notable roles at Halifax Bank of Scotland, including Chief Executive of Business-to-Business Banking and Chief Executive of Intelligent Finance, a role which saw him develop HBOS’s internet offering into a full-service online banking platform.

More recently, he was appointed as a non-executive chairman of YOPA, the hybrid online real estate agency.

BidX1 is a digital platform which aims to connect users across the globe with real estate investment opportunities in five markets and ‘enables them to complete the entire transaction online’.

The company was first launched in Dublin in 2011, where it held large-scale auction events for several years before transitioning to a digital model in 2015.

It entered the UK market in 2018 with the acquisition of auctioneering firm Andrews & Robertson and has since expanded into Spain, South Africa, and Cyprus.

BidX1 says it has sold over 14,000 properties across Europe to date, equating to a ‘Gross Transaction Value’ of over €2.8 billion.

The platform offers both residential and commercial properties on its platform, across a broad range of asset types, and attracted more than 1.5 million visitors last year.

Michael Murphy, chief executive officer at BidX1, said of the appointment: “We’re delighted to welcome such an experienced and respected senior executive to our board. BidX1 will benefit from Grenville’s extensive experience in the property, PropTech and retail banking sectors at both executive and board levels, where his strategic vision and digital acumen have helped so many businesses achieve their growth potential.”

He added: “Growth in Southern Europe is a near-term priority for BidX1 while in more established markets we will be focused on building strategic partnerships, as well as rolling out adjacent products and services to our buyers and sellers. Grenville’s perspective will be invaluable as we seek to identify new opportunities in existing and new markets and continue to scale our platform.”

Turner himself said: “BidX1’s growth trajectory has been impressive, and that growth is underpinned by equally impressive fundamentals: an experienced management team, deep property sector expertise and a digital-first model which puts transparency, efficiency and user-experience at its core.”