Last rites for Harry Hill's In-Deed conveyancing venture

Harry Hill’s ill-fated conveyancing company In-Deed Online disappeared this week.

After acquiring a firm called Epic Group, it changed its name to Learning Technologies Group. This week, Learning Technologies began trading on AIM.

The manoeuvre is known as a reverse takeover and allows an unlisted company – in this case Epic – to be injected into the shell of one that is listed.

In-Deed launched just over two years ago and became the first conveyancing firm to be listed.

Hill, the former CEO of Countrywide and founder of Rightmove, now has a seat on the board of Brighton-based Learning Technologies, which is far removed from the world of house buying and selling and provides e-learning solutions for employers.

Hill said of the reverse takeover: “This is an excellent proposition for In-Deed shareholders and a good use of the In-Deed listing.

“E-learning is a fast-growing segment and this business has established itself as a market leader in the UK and has a strong platform to build out internationally.”

In July, In-Deed became non-operational under AIM rules, instead becoming an investing business and required to make an acquisition  – or reverse takeover – in order to retain its listing.

Three companies were apparently interested in reversing their businesses into the shell company that In-Deed had become – none of them involved in conveyancing.

Hill could not have imagined the end would come so quickly for In-Deed, which he set up declaring the ambition for it to become market leader within three years. When it floated on AIM in June 2011, shares soared and within hours valued the company at £11.23m.

It used Phil Spencer as its public face and intended to offer fixed-price conveyancing purely online, cutting out estate agents and other middlemen as a way of getting business.

At one point, the In-Deed website ran an online game called Angry Buyers, inviting the public to ‘fire’ their estate agents out of a cannon.

When the online model did not work, In-Deed went on to become the first listed company to buy a law firm, top ten conveyancer Runnett & Co, for £4m.

However, this summer it sold it back to Runnett founder Matthew Lewis for  £1, together with the rest of the online business, including the In-Deed website. The company also paid £325,000 to fund working capital and restructuring costs.

Hill, who also founded Countrywide Property Lawyers during his long tenure at the company – ironically bought for £1 – is clearly badly bruised by the In-Deed experience.

He said he would not return to the legal market “while I have two eyes in my head”.

He added: “We entered into this with quite a lot of enthusiasm and ended up with quite a lot of deflation.”