eXp World Holdings, the Bellingham, Washington-based holding company of fast-growing real estate brokerage, eXp Realty, announced today it had applied to “uplist” to Nasdaq from its current place on OTCQB, the middle-tier venture market.
“If the company’s listing application is accepted, shares of the company’s common stock would begin trading on The Nasdaq Stock Market. The uplisting is subject to approval, in part, based on the company’s ability to meet Nasdaq minimum listing requirements,” the company noted in the announcement.
“We are pleased with the growth in revenue driven by increased agent and transaction count, and internal efficiencies,” said Glenn Sanford, eXp World Holdings CEO, Chairman and founder, in a prepared statement shared exclusively with Inman under embargo. “Listing on Nasdaq is an exciting next step for eXp World Holdings’ shareholders and investors.”
Sanford announced the news on the day of the company’s annual eXp Shareholder Summit, a business-focused event for current and potential shareholders who include agent-owners, investors and prospective agents to be held tonight in Las Vegas.
As a publicly traded company, eXp World Holdings offers real estate professionals “within its ranks” opportunities to earn company stock for production and contributions to overall company growth, such as by recruiting other agents to the company.
The company flagged that it had filed an extension to delay the filing of its 2017 Annual Report (on Form 10-K) while it waits for an answer from the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of the Chief Accountant on how it treats employee-based equity as it revealed positive but “select” 2017 financial results. The annual report is expected to come out April 17.
“[The delay] will have no impact on eXp Realty’s agents, gross revenue, or the operations of the business,” said an eXp Realty spokesperson.
The holding company for eXp Realty meanwhile reported in the select results that its 2017 revenue reached $156.1 million for the year compared to $54.2 million for 2016, with the number of agents and brokers on the eXp Realty platform increasing by 171 percent to 6,511 at the end of 2017, compared with 2,401 at the end of 2016. The current agent count is now closer to 9,300 as of April 4.
Gross margin increased 132 percent to $16.5 million from $7.1 million in 2016 while cash flow from operations increased 302 percent to $4.1 million, compared with 1 million in 2016.
Commissions and other agent-related costs were $139.6 million, up from $46.7 million the year prior.
Residential transaction volume closed for 2017 increased 209 percent to $6.1 billion over $2 billion in 2016 with transaction sides closed in 2017 increasing by 212 percent to 25,300, compared with 8,100 in 2016.
The cloud-based, virtual brokerage which claims to be the largest by geography in North America expanded in 2017 from 42 to to 47 U.S. states and added one Canadian province for a total of two.
The cloud-based real estate brokerage provides its agents and brokers with 24 hour, seven-day access to collaborative tools, training and socialization through its virtual campus environment.
More on the minimum requirements for listing on Nasdaq can be found here, https://listingcenter.nasdaq.com/assets/initialguide.pdf.