Rightmove. Wrong price [Members]
For MOGULS by The Investor
on October 7, 2024
The best businesses can be too good to stay that way. Blessed with superb economics and seemingly-impregnable market positions, anyone would want to own their quality but for two recurring problems:
- Valuation – Unless the company or its sector is new (think Google-owner Alphabet on listing in 2004) or there is some kind of crisis (as Warren Buffett exploited with his American Express purchase in 1964) you must usually pay a generous multiple of future cashflows to buy the shares.
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Always enjoying the moguls pieces!
Rightmove: yet another quality stock on my radar (never owned, in this case) currently at a share price first achieved 3 to 5 years ago. (2019 in Rightmove’s case.)
About half of my portfolio (by name) fits into this category with an average of about 2020 for when the current share price was first achieved.
Thankfully (1) I bought or added to some of these since the (hopefully temporary) Mr Market malaise started; (2) the other half of my portfolio contains some really big gainers over the period since then; and (3) finally the fundamental numbers on my portfolio versus current prices slightly excites me again, as opposed to ‘meh’ for the last few years (it is not coincidental that I have made some mortgage overpayments over that time — whilst still adding to my portfolio too).
Higher interest rates like gravity for investors indeed!
@Owl — Thanks for your thoughts, I always feel a bit like a kid in the playground not being picked for the either team when I first post these pieces to busy Mogul types. 🙂
I have a sense — from your 50% portfolio mix comment — that our investing style may share some eclecticism.
Quality (exc. cash-rich tech) has certainly been tough sledding the past few years. IIRC we talked about the big drinks brands around the start of this year? Adding to those was a bright idea that I could have done without. 😉
They were finally bouncing on China stimulus (turned out I’d re-imported a lot of ‘China risk’ into my portfolio that I thought I’d mostly purged a couple of years ago on increasing concerns about the politics/property rights there) and now I’ve woken up this morning to anti-dumping tariffs being back on again!
Need to do some hard thinking, as on many measures the prices look almost once in a generational here. (But then again what, as I say in my article above, if Gen Z really doesn’t drink?)
But yes, like you I have done better under my other ‘hats’ of late.
Oh well, if something isn’t failing to work then you’re not diversified right? That holds for equities as well as assets I suppose.
Hopefully I’m laying the foundations for a stunning quality revival in future years, but the recent strength in bond yields is kicking that day further out, too…
So in the same way my kids are addicted to duolingo, my wife is addicted to rightmove. And she is not alone clearly -> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c77xdp1e56yo
All strong reasons to invest!
On Rightmove itself, it’s worth pointing out that it isn’t the dominant player in every part of the UK.
Here in Edinburgh and the Lothians, the ESPC (Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre https://espc.com/) dominates, and has done since pre-web.
@Owl — That’s very interesting on ESPC. On the face of it I can’t see why they should have kept an edge over Rightmove? I understand the Scottish property market is a little different in terms of bidding and so on, but that shouldn’t matter. And their website just looks like a slightly sub-standard version of Rightmove’s.
You can’t even call it parochial — Edinburgh must be the most cosmopolitan of the Scottish cities (except perhaps Aberdeen in its O&G pomp?) with more than average numbers of non-local buyers.
To be honest it almost makes me *more* bullish about Rightmove as a moated business, in that it would seem another point of evidence on how valuable incumbent habits are!
@Rhino — Haha, quite! I did mention property porn very briefly in the article, and your wife is far from alone. Don’t let her clap sight of The Modern House website if I were you. That’ll be FIRE kicked into touch for another 30 years… 😉
I’ve mentioned before I own shares in DuoLingo I think. That is another fascinating play on enduring habit. Big risk is AI, but for now it seems to be more a beneficiary.
Pretty positive trading update from Rightmove today:
https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/RMV/trading-statement/16754971
Higher ARPA doesn’t seem to square with rising competition from On The Market — and given (very modest) member growth it doesn’t seem like the denominator is queering that number — though Rightmove does nod to some product migration/integration, which could imply selling more stuff rather than stuff for more (the latter being more positive for me as a sign of the moat / pricing power being intact).
Shares are down a few percent from where I wrote above, very slightly underperforming.
I could as easily see a case for buying as for selling. As it is I remain on the fence but it is an intriguing and difficult (/binary?) stock to judge. If greater competition truly isn’t really a threat then disruption is off the table, it has a lock, and I’d probably buy it here.
All just FWIW, do your own research as ever and please remember I will only update posts on a very ad hoc basis with a comment, if ever. Thanks! 🙂
Update: I haven’t been able to shake the sense that if Rightmove is seeing off the competition despite the extra marketing push there, then we have new information that suggests (a) its position is entrenched (b) it is even stronger than supposed.
Set against that it’s arguably still early-ish days for the threat from the deep-pocketed Americans.
I’ve decided to split the difference and take a small starter position at just under £6.
Regret minimisation insurance? Perhaps. But this is one of the highest-quality shares on the UK market *if* it doesn’t roll (or have to hugely ramp up spending) in the face of new competition. We’ll see!
I wonder if there might be some behavioural limits to the efficacy of digital sales and marketing of houses. Advertising guru (and IMHO national treasure Rory Sutherland) has an interesting observation at 3 mins 50 sec to 5 min 45 sec in this interview (worth listening to the whole thing, especially at 2x speed where he sounds 4x as good):
https://youtu.be/0krwl3uCArs?si=awVwJ2ajOj24ZmIW
Another update, this time from Rightmove with its final results:
https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/RMV/final-results/16918911
I thought they were impressive. A year into the new competitive threat and ARPU is up while the 90% client retention rate is the second-highest in the past decade. Outlook is bullish.
If I were writing this piece today, I think my prevarication would lean towards it being worth the price. Currently I’m out of the stock (I sold the small number I had for a trading profit) but I can see myself buying back in soon.
Not a recommendation as to what you should do, as always! Just a follow-up as this post was deliberately undecided. 🙂
Telegraph today agrees with your positive prognosis @TI:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/investing/property-market-is-about-to-come-roaring-back/
REA deal re Rightmove now officially off reports DT:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/09/rupert-murdoch-abandons-new-rightmove-bid-tariff-chaos/
Like London buses – nothing on this company for a while then two at once.
Re: #5: Duolingo – Results up. Price down. Time to buy?
https://open.substack.com/pub/multibaggernuggets/p/duolingo-what-the-hell-is-going-on
Very interesting shellacking of Rightmove today (as much as 25%+ on the open) on softer profit forecasts:
https://plc.rightmove.co.uk/content/uploads/2025/11/251106-RNS-Trading-Update.pdf
Reaffirmed its longer-term goals.
In part management is putting the weakness down to increased investment into (27!) AI-related projects. Given that the incremental spend is only £18m next year, the c.£500m change in market cap looks pretty overdone on any reasonable multiple.
Perhaps the market is wondering if Rightmove is acting not out of strength, as management would tout, but out of weakness (threat of disruption). Or perhaps it sees this AI spend as a smokescreen for some other weakness.
I don’t currently own any RMV. Had some for a bit at about £6.50 but fortunately sold for ‘meh’…
We are well under the price discussed in my article above of October 2024. Given it seems to be holding up as a portal versus that new entrant threat, that’s interesting. (But again, smokescreen risk? Lots to ponder here!)
Poor Nick Train though. This was touted as one of his brightest new ideas. Reverse Midas touch at the moment! (Diageo, his very favourite stock, at a 10 year low yesterday too…)
An activist investor has bought a £250 mn stake in Rightmove. London based Independent Franchise Partners has purchased 5.8% in recent weeks, becoming Rightmove’s third biggest shareholder.
Investment made after the Rightmove warned that its profit growth would slow next year due to investments in AI. That announcement wiped £1 bn off Rightmove’s market value.
Nick Train’s LDIT IT went down briefly to £6.60p yesterday compared to ~£16 ATH in May 2019. We’re back to August 2018 prices now.
@Delta Hedge — The Rightmove situation is very interesting here IMHO. I had a tiny position bought after it was obviously seeing off the threat from rivals (yet again) and sold for ‘meh’ (plus or minus 1-2%, can’t remember which) but at this price there’s a lot of potential. These investments are relatively modest and could well create more of a lock. (Even just it’s new keywords feature on the app is handy and value-adding to the experience). In theory if it can keep the agents it’ll keep the data, and data is everything. Even if ultimately it charges chatbots to access that data etc.
Re: Nick Train, my experience there has been more exciting. I eventually sold my ‘activist’ tranche at prices from £8 upwards based on the semi-inexplicable rise, though I don’t think I got any away at the peak (and no doubt was flagellating myself for it at the time). It’s since cratered down. FUM keeps leaving LTL is the main problem. The share price recalibration (100-1 split) has flopped to a really surprising degree. And Lindsell hasn’t bought a 50,000 block for a while. So of course I’m now very exposed again, in size.
The discount is c. 23% but a big chunk of that is effectively cash at LTL. Granted that cash isn’t accessible but it is reassuring. I see it as a basket of quality stocks, plus effectively on option as a kicker to any eventual ‘quality’ (/ex-Mag 7) recovery.
Not for widows and orphans though, and I’d certainly reduce my position if the share price got meaningfully off the floor again.
NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE to anyone and as ever I cannot undertake to update on all prior articles. Just burning a few thoughts off instead of finishing up my latest Moguls piece haha 😉
Interesting that Ackman’s PSH is now on same discount to Train’s LDIT (24% to 23%), but the former is showing much healthier price action to the latter, at over £50 right now.
Dividends a world apart though, LDIT on 6.3%, PSH on 1%.
On Rightmove, might small loss making Watkin Jones (share price down almost 90% on January 2022 ATH, looks to have bottomed out since November 2024, used to make £40 mn profit p.a., now <£70 mn market cap) or cheap (10x PE) and still profitable Berkeley Homes (£3.6 bn cap) maybe offer more upside on UK property exposure than Rightmove??
IMHO the case for LDIT rests upon the potential ‘leverage’ like exposure to the (possibly shockingly undervalued) asset management business. Maynard Patton seems dead keen on it for that reason.
I keep all my exposures to these active single stock names very low. Sub 1% positions across combined ISA/SIPP/GIA.