An upbeat trading update and revised financial targets from the UK’s leading property portal Rightmove (RMV) proved a hit with investors on 27 November, but it hasn’t been all plain sailing for the FTSE firm of late.

At the end of October, the group’s share price took a battering after US real estate giant CoStar (CSGP:NYSE) announced a £99 million all-cash offer for Rightmove’s UK rival OnTheMarket (OTMP:AIM).

The US firm, which already runs websites Homes.com, LoopNet.com and Apartments.com, said at the time it intended to turn OnTheMarket into a ‘market leader’, putting the property listings site under pressure to respond.

At the same time, analysts at Jefferies carped that Rightmove had relied for too long on raising the price of its subscriptions rather than selling new products to generate growth.

Fast-forward a month and Rightmove seems to be fighting back against the sceptics by forecasting revenue growth ahead of expectations despite uncertainty in the housing market.

Rightmove now expects average revenue per advertiser (ARPA) growth to be £112 to £116 for the full year, up from a previous forecast of between £103 and £105, driven by new home developers who have extended their usage of the firm’s Native Search Adverts and Advanced Development Listing products to sell their developments.

As well as raising its short-term guidance, the firm published new financial targets reaching out to 2028 with revenue seen topping £600 million and underlying operating profit seen above £420 million.

For comparison, this year the firm is seen posting revenue of £360 million and operating profit of £263 million.

One notable fan of the stock is star fund manager Nick Train, who recently snapped up more shares for his £1.8 billion Finsbury Growth & Income Trust (FGT) and the Lindsell Train UK Equity (B18B9X7) according to specialist financial website Citywire .

Train may have been opportunistic, taking advantage of the sharp drop in the share price after the announcement of CoStar’s approach for OnTheMarket, or he could just be impressed with Rightmove’s underlying operating profit growth of 7%-8% and higher-than-expected ARPA.

Either way, the seasoned manager is known for his enthusiasm for companies with large proprietary data sets and the data analytics theme.

‘We sense that global investors are looking for owners of globally relevant and unique data and, despite warranted caution about the UK market, are finding candidates in London,’ observed Train in his September fund commentary.

Shore Capital analyst Roddy Davidson described Rightmove’s latest update as ‘very encouraging update in the context of the significant macroeconomic headwinds impacting the UK property market and provides another illustration of the strength of the company’s proposition to both agents, developers, and consumers’.

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