OnTheMarket retains majority agent-owned status

OnTheMarket is celebrating retaining its majority agent-owned status amid sell-offs by some of its early shareholders.

It comes after 1.9m shares held by agency firms, representing approximately 2.5% of its total share capital, were offloaded yesterday after its initial public offering (IPO) lock-in period closed.

At the time of its IPO, agent shareholders were restricted from selling their shares for five years and that lock-in period ends on 9 February 2023.

OTM said in December that it has created a facility for a one-off sale, without which it is claimed that “the market price achievable by selling agent shareholders may be impacted.” 

Through the OTM Corporate Sponsored Nominee (OTM CSN) mechanism, selling agent shareholders placed 1.9m shares representing approximately 2.5% of the total share capital of OnTheMarket. 

As a result, OnTheMarket will remain majority agent owned.

Management shareholder Morgan Ross - OTM's product and technology director – also sold 1.2m shares, giving a total 3.1m in the mechanism, representing 4.1% of the issued share capital of OnTheMarket.

The shares will now be sold in a one-off placing, expected to be settled on 20 February 2023.

The idea is that the placing will look to identify buying demand to match aggregate selling demand and achieve the best result for selling shareholders.

If the shares don't sell they can stay within the CSN and belong to the agent who can ask to try and sell them later on their behalf, or they can hold them or they can transfer them out of the CSN if they wish.

Jason Tebb, chief executive of OnTheMarket, said the small number of sell-offs has proved the portal’s critics wrong.

He told Estate Agent Today: “If you think about the history of the business, this was something talked about for a long time, those critical of the business had their own view of what may happen.

“Now we can start to execute the next stage of the strategy in terms of providing a portal, software, data and communication and marketing tools for agents.

“We can continue to develop that and are looking at new opportunities all the time.”