Morning Brief – UK House Sellers

UK House Sellers

For those readers who remember the 1980’s, you will recall that the most loathed symbol of Young Urban Professionals or Yuppies was the estate agent who zipped around in a flash (red) company motor with a mobile phone the size of a brick clamped to his ear. With the advent of the internet and improvements in technology, to no-one’s surprise the chains of estate agents have shrunk, the flash motor has been either binned or replaced with a Smartcar and the phone has also become smart and smaller….a lot smaller. Instinctively one would have expected online property sales companies to have done commensurately better. Worth checking Purplebricks, the largest of the online companies: since 2015 sales have rocketed from GBP3.4M to GBP136M in 2018. Unfortunately profitability or rather losses have followed the same trajectory: Loss of GBP 5.4M in 2015 to loss of GBP51.8M in 2018. Needless to say the shares have followed suit: down 80% over the same period. Something wrong with the business model?

50% Off+ Premium Cabin Discounts+ Business Class Airfares+ Spending Money=?

Just some of the incentives on offer from the global Cruise business that is reeling from the understandable reluctance of its target customers to risk a cruise during this peak season for the industry. Many of our clients escape the cold northern hemisphere and normally take a few weeks to discover new places and enjoy warm weather at this time of year. Not in 2020 which is shaping up to be a watershed year for the whole cruise business model and will have a knock on effect on ports all over the world and associated support businesses. So what businesses will benefit? The answer is Staycations: book Cornwall -now!

Education: Largest School in the World

That title belongs to The City Montessori School in Lucknow, India founded in 1959, with 1000 classrooms and wait for it…..55,547 pupils from age 3 to 18. Gupta, are you here?! Must take a bit of time to complete the attendance register!

When I was Four, I told my mother I wanted to be a rock star when I grew up. She said, “You can’t do both.”

This from Steven Tyler lead singer of rock band Aerosmith who together with bandmate guitarist Joe Perry were known as the Toxic Twins due to their drug excesses in the 1970’s. Now clean for over 20 years apart from Joe having a brief lapse with a “foot problem” which necessitated a return to rehab in 2008, Aerosmith are the most successful US hard rock band ever and have sold over 150 Million albums worldwide. 71 year old Tyler is worth over $130 Million and the band is on a semi-permanent farewell tour having landed in Las Vegas where they have a residency until mid 2020.

Catch’em if you can!

Discussion and Analysis by Humphrey Percy, Chairman and Founder

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