The Joneses drops sharemarket listing

High profile real estate firm The Joneses has pulled the plug at the last moment on its planned sharemarket listing.

The company, which had a meeting set in Auckland for Wednesday to formalise the listing on New Zealand Exchange's alternative market said this morning it had been unable to raise the at least $1.5 million it needed for the listing to proceed. Wednesday's meeting has been called off.

The volatility in global capital markets was blamed. It had been planned for the Joneses parent company to engineer a reverse listing through shell company RLV No 3.

Directors of The Joneses' parent company had only weeks ago expressed confidence the listing would proceed, even though the markets were in turmoil.

"I don't think it is going to be a significant factor," Chris Taylor, a director of the parent company TJRE Holdings, said last month.

Through its offices in Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington and Dunedin The Joneses offers fixed fee services, charging customers $8995 to sell houses as opposed to the normal percentage commission.

The company has talked of rapidly expanding its number of offices and its belief of how its fixed-fee approach would be the future of the real estate industry.

In an independent report on the proposed listing, advisers WHK Corporate Finance, said the reverse takeover and valuation was fair for RLV shareholders.

They pointed out, however, that funding was "urgently required" while The Joneses was in its development phase. A statement of financial position provided by the company showed that liabilities were in excess of tangible assets as at November 30.

- © Fairfax NZ News