Rightmove profits hit by decision to abandon HIPs

Rightmove profits hit by decision to abandon HIPs

	Published : Fri, 01 Sep 2006 12:45 By : Andrew Stead Print this Story

LONDON - Property website Rightmove reported that it doubled its revenues in the first set of half-yearly results released since the group floated in March. The company reported pre-tax profits of £1.6 million in the six months ending June 30.

It added that the number of estate agents advertising on its web site had increased 53 percent to 14,680 during the time. But the group admitted that profits had been hit by costs of an aborted investment in Home Information Packs (Hips), which were withdrawn by the government.

Rightmove said it had already put in £7 million in developing its Website to reflect the HIPS information. "The board considered these changes and concluded that there was no realistic prospect of developing a profitable Rightmove Hips business," said Rightmove. The move to abandon the project came in July after the government announced that HPIS would be voluntary in nature rather than mandatory.

"The first six months have seen rapid growth in our on-line advertising business with over 5,000 new advertisers subscribing to Rightmove," the company said. "Growth has been particularly strong with estate agency, lettings and new homes advertisers across all regions of Great Britain."

The statement also said the outlook for the rest of the year was promising and that it continued to progress although advertising methods on the Internet were changing. "We will focus all our sales efforts on increasing advertiser numbers and to focus our technology resources on delivering new advertising products more rapidly than we had originally planned," Rightmove said. "We believe that the second half of 2006 provides Rightmove with every opportunity to build on the strong first half of the year and to lay the foundations for further rapid growth in revenue in 2007 and beyond," it added.

The group announced an interim dividend of 1.5 pence a share.