People Roundup: Adevinta, Spitogatos, PurpleBricks

This week's people roundup is all about the C-suite. We'll start with rumours of a leadership change at Adevinta...

New CEO at Adevinta?

Sources at Adevinta have hinted that a new CEO has been appointed as the conglomerate undergoes significant change after its takeover earlier in May 2024.

Two sources inside Adevinta say that Antoine Jouteau has been replaced by the company's Executive Chairman Jacob Fonnesbech Aqraou, who has only been in situ since May 2024, with Jouteau returning to his previous company, leboncoin, as CEO.

The sources also indicated that Adevinta COO Alexandre Collinet is expected to leave the company soon.

Aqraou is a veteran of EBay Classifieds Group and EBay Marketplaces (13 years), and as chairman at Boats Group, the Miami-based multinational boat and yacht marketplace that’s majority-owned by Permira. He has been a "senior advisor for technology and consumer" for Permira since 2021, so the alleged appointment would very much be a move from 'within the business'.

If the rumours are indeed to be believed, the likelihood is that Aqraou will be tasked with overseeing a significant change at Adevinta. Several of its marketplace assets are expected to be up for sale as the group's new owners focus on core strategic priorities.

Adevinta was bought out for $13.4 billion in 2024, going private when a consortium led by Permira and Blackstone took control of the European classifieds giant.

Adevinta operates more than 20 digital marketplaces in 10 countries, including the real estate portals including Fotocasa and Habitaclia and horizontal marketplaces leboncoin (France), Kleinanzeigen (Germany), Marktplaats (Netherlands) and Subito (Italy).

New COO at Spitogatos

Greece-based real estate marketplace Spitogatos has announced the appointment of Dimitrios Tsatiris as the portal's new Chief Operational Officer.

A post on the portal's LinkedIn page said, "With Dimitris on the team, we further strengthen our commitment to innovation and exceptional service experience. Dimitris will play a key role in upgrading our services and evolving our platform, offering added value for hashtag real estate users and professionals."

Tsatiris was previously co-founder and CEO of the price comparison platform Pricefox, which offers car insurance and other price comparison services including energy providers.

Purplebricks CEO steps down

Sam Mitchell will leave his role as CEO at Purplebricks imminently, according to a post on his personal LinkedIn page.

Mitchell said:

 "After 7 years I am stepping down from my role as CEO.

"Some amazing memories; from all the testing we did as Housesimple, to launching Strike in the midst of a pandemic (sell your home, from your phone, for free), growing to become the second biggest agent in the country within 2 years, starting an FS business that wrote over £1BN in lending in just our second year, to acquiring Purplebricks, integrating the two businesses, relaunching PB, getting rid of deferred fees and mandated services, slashing prices for customers and introducing a free service getting PB back to its number one market share spot…. It’s been quite a journey."

Purplebricks is currently in a consultation process that could see up to 90 people lose their jobs.

The company lost $23.6 million in 2023.