Hat tip Harriet Dennys, the City diarist over at The Daily Telegraph, for tracking down Jon Hunt's spokesman and getting him/her to provide some sort of comment on the recent speculation the founder of Foxtons may be interested in buying the estate agency back of the public markets.
As Harriet points out today, a spokesman for the former Army officer refused to deny the takeover talk. Here is a link to Harriet's column:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/citydiary/11193320/City-Diary-Is-Jon-back-on-the-Hunt-for-Foxtons-after-profits-slump.html
If the recent speculation - which first arose in a comment column written by Martin Waller of The Times - is well founded, I suspect Hunt will probably bide his time and wait to see how much further the London property market has to fall before pouncing on his old company.
Indeed, there have been a swathe of reports out this week about how the London property market is cooling, including one from another old colleague, Ed Conway, now Economics editor over at Sky News. Here is a link to Ed's recent blog on the topic: https://medium.com/sky-news/whisper-it-quietly-the-london-property-market-is-turning-4ca387f35bde
I suppose, then, a bid for Foxtons from Hunt may be just wishful thinking on the part of investors who have seen the stock crash by 40pc since the beginning of the year.
I have no idea whether Hunt is interested in buying back Foxtons, but if he is expect him to come forward when the London property market really has hit a low as he clearly demonstrated he is the master of timing when he sold the business to BC Partners for £360m in 2007, the height of the credit and property boom.
In the meantime, Hunt can focus on renovating his chalet in the ski resort Courchevel 1850:
http://betaville123.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/foxtons-founder-gets-busy-with-chalet.html
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