London, 20th April 2022 – BidX1, Europe’s leading digital property investment platform (the “Company”), today announced that Grenville Turner, formerly CEO of Countrywide, a Founding Director of Rightmove plc and a past Director of Zoopla plc, has been appointed as chairperson of the board.
Turner has over 40 years of experience in retail banking, the property sector, and online businesses. He was CEO of Countrywide, the UK’s largest estate agency, from 2007 to 2014, during which time he took the Group private and subsequently oversaw its return to the public market in 2013 as part of a £1bn+ IPO.
Prior to that, Turner held several executive roles at Halifax Bank of Scotland plc, including Chief Executive of Business-to-Business Banking and Chief Executive of Intelligent Finance, a role which saw him develop HBOS’s internet offering into a full-service online banking platform.
BidX1 is a digital platform which connects users across the globe with real estate investment opportunities in five markets and enables them to complete the entire transaction online. A leader in the PropTech space, the Company was first established in Dublin in 2011, where it held large-scale auction events for several years before transitioning to a digital model in 2015.
BidX1 entered the UK market in 2018 with the acquisition of auctioneering firm Andrews & Robertson and has since expanded into Spain, South Africa, and Cyprus. The firm’s digital approach to property sales has proven popular with buyers and sellers across Europe; BidX1 has sold over 14,000 properties to date, equating to a Gross Transaction Value of over €2.8 billion.
Turner’s appointment as Chairman comes as BidX1 gears up for another phase of growth. Last November, the Company announced strategic investments from two new shareholders: doValue, the leading Servicer in Southern Europe for loan and real estate management services, with €160 billion of assets under management, and Oliver Wyman, a leading global management consulting firm.
A highly experienced leader, Turner is currently Non-Executive Chairman of YOPA, the hybrid online real estate agency, where he has overseen a strategy that has resulted in YOPA increasing its share of listings nationally and boosted revenue by 38%.
BidX1 offers both residential and commercial properties on its platform, across a broad range of asset types, which attracted more than 1.5 million visitors last year. While the make-up of buyers varies by market, the wide range of investment opportunities offered, coupled with a fully digital process, has made BidX1 popular with small-to-medium investors: more than 30% of those who purchased a property through the platform last year were repeat buyers.
Over 36,000 bids were placed through the platform in 2021, with bidders hailing from 33 countries. The result was a Gross Transaction Value of €500 million last year alone, while the total value of bids placed came in at €1.4 billion.
Michael Murphy, Chief Executive Officer at BidX1, commented: “We’re delighted to welcome such an experienced and respected senior executive to our board. BidX1 will benefit from Grenville’s extensive experience in the property, PropTech and retail banking sectors at both executive and board levels, where his strategic vision and digital acumen have helped so many businesses achieve their growth potential.
“Growth in Southern Europe is a near-term priority for BidX1 while in more established markets we will be focused on building strategic partnerships, as well as rolling out adjacent products and services to our buyers and sellers. Grenville’s perspective will be invaluable as we seek to identify new opportunities in existing and new markets and continue to scale our platform.”
Grenville Turner, BidX1’s incoming Chairperson of the Board, said: “BidX1’s growth trajectory has been impressive, and that growth is underpinned by equally impressive fundamentals: an experienced management team, deep property sector expertise and a digital-first model which puts transparency, efficiency and user-experience at its core.”
Turner will join existing board members Stephen McCarthy, who founded BidX1 in 2011, and Lindsey McMurray, Managing Partner at private equity firm Pollen Street Capital, which made a strategic investment in BidX1 in 2018 as the Company began to expand internationally, as well as James Scott, a Partner at Pollen Street. Vicente Vázquez Bouza, Partner in Corporate Finance & Restructuring at Oliver Wyman, and Daniele Della Seta, Head of M&A and Strategic Finance at doValue, joined BidX1’s board of directors following the recent investments.
-ENDS-
About BidX1
BidX1 is Europe’s leading digital property investment platform. The PropTech company has built a digital platform which connects users across the globe with property investment opportunities in five markets and enables them to complete the entire transaction online using proprietary technology. Established in Ireland in 2011, BidX1 is the market leader in online property transactions; the company has sold more than 14,000 properties to date, raising over €2.8 billion. More than 36,000 bids were placed through the BidX1 platform last year, with buyers from over 60 countries to date.
BidX1 was recognised as a ‘Best Managed Company’ by Deloitte in 2021 and has received numerous other awards, including an Irish Times Innovation Award in 2018 and a KPMG Property Industry Excellence Award in 2019. For more information, visit www.bidx1.com.
About Pollen Street Capital
Pollen Street Capital is an independent, alternative investment management company with a focus on financial and business services that drive business transformation and investment performance. For more information, visit www.pollencap.com.
About doValue
doValue, formerly doBank S.p.A., is the leading operator in Southern Europe in credit management and real estate services for banks and investors. Present in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus, doValue has over 21 years of experience in the sector and manages assets for approximately Euro 160 billion (Gross Book Value) with over 3,200 employees and an integrated offer of services: special servicing of NPLs, UTP, Early Arrears, and performing positions, real estate servicing, master servicing, data processing and other ancillary services for credit management. doValue is listed on the Electronic Stock Market managed by Borsa Italiana S.p.A. and, including the acquisition of Altamira Asset Management and doValue Greece, recorded in 2020 gross revenues of Euro 421 million and an EBITDA excluding non-recurring items of Euro 127 million. For more information, visit https://www.dovalue.it/en.
About Oliver Wyman
Oliver Wyman is a global leader in management consulting. With offices in more than 70 cities across 30 countries, Oliver Wyman combines deep industry knowledge with specialized expertise in strategy, operations, risk management, and organization transformation. The firm has more than 5,000 professionals around the world who work with clients to optimize their business, improve their operations and risk profile, and accelerate their organizational performance to seize the most attractive opportunities. Oliver Wyman is a business of Marsh McLennan [NYSE: MMC]. For more information, visit www.oliverwyman.com. Follow Oliver Wyman on Twitter @OliverWyman.
For further information, contact:
Nicole Pomeroy, Chief Marketing Officer, BidX1
+353 (0)86 130 0717