But its advisers could be spooked by a sharp fall in Rightmove’s share prices in recent days.
Last week, Rightmove’s shares plummeted £3, reducing the value of the company to just under £2.1bn from a high in February of over £2.7bn.
The fall did not come on the back of any bad news from the company or negative broker sentiment, but may have been the result of speculation of a house price bubble and a possible rise in interest rates.
Although Bank of England governor Mark Carney appears to have ruled out an immediate rise in interest rates, he did say that the housing market was the biggest threat to the recovering economy, and that the Bank is closely watching rising house prices.
Yesterday in an interview on Sky he went further, saying that the housing market has “deep, deep problems”.
Meanwhile, Zoopla is expected to announce its plans to go public this Thursday when its parent group, Daily Mail and General Trust, releases its annual results.
The stock market is expected to value Zoopla at around £1bn – half the current value of Rightmove – creating a windfall for both the Daily Mail publishers and Zoopla founder Alex Chesterman, who made the Sunday Times Rich List yesterday for the first time, with a fortune estimated at £100m.
The DMGT owns 51% of Zoopla, while Chesterman has a 9% stake. Other winners in a flotation would be the corporate estate agents, including Countrywide and LSL, that also have stakes.
Any flotation of Zoopla would inevitably cause City analysts to focus on Agents’ Mutual, its recruitment of agents so far, and its plans to launch next January with an advertising rule of “only one other portal”.
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