Estate agent axes dividend and jobs

TROUBLED estate agent Countrywide is scrapping its dividend and axing 150 jobs after racking up losses of more than £200m last year.

The company, which owns brands including Hamptons, Bairstow Eves, Beresford Adams and Gascoigne-Pees, saw shares fall 24pc to a record low in early trading as it said a third of its 450-strong central office team would go as part of a cost-cutting drive.

Executive chairman Peter Long, who took charge in January following the departure of chief executive Alison Platt in the wake of a thumping profits warning, said he was taking Countrywide ‘back to basics’ after a disastrous few years.

He said that the strategy unveiled in 2015, which saw 200 branches closed and 1,000 jobs cut as the lettings and sales businesses were merged, had been ‘flawed’.

The company reported a loss of £208.1m for 2017 having made a profit of £17.5m the previous year. Revenues were down 9pc to £671.9m.

Shares ended down 1.6pc, or 1.4p, at 87.5p.