Built Cybernetics (AIM:BUC), the smart buildings group, has signed a binding agreement to sell half its interest in Aukett + Heese Frankfurt (AHF), the smaller of its two German architecture investments, for €250,000 (approximately £214,000).
The buyer is Lutz Heese, a Munich-based architect and former Built Cybernetics director between 2004 and 2010, who already owns the majority 75% stake in the Group's Berlin practice, Aukett + Heese GmbH.
The deal brings AHF onto the same 75/25 ownership structure as Berlin, cutting Built Cybernetics' Frankfurt stake from 50% to 25%.
The carrying value of the Frankfurt stake stood at £300,000 at the half-year mark to 31 March, when the office contributed £54,000 in shared profits and £683,000 in revenue less subconsultant costs, against £1.136 million for the prior full year.
Built Cybernetics has also collected £82,000 in further Frankfurt dividends since 1 April, on top of £42,000 received in the first half.
The company expects to book an accounting gain of approximately £78,000 on the disposal, with proceeds due once notarisation is complete in the coming weeks.
It will retain 50% of management charges from both the Berlin and Frankfurt offices despite the reduced equity stake.
Chief executive Nick Clark said Frankfurt "has been a useful contributor to the Group's performance for over a quarter of a century" but called it "not a large business", framing the sale as a chance "to reallocate capital to our smart buildings businesses, where we can grow recurring revenues that scale faster than headcount".
News Intelligence what this means for the company
Built Cybernetics is selling its 50% stake in its smaller German architecture practice, Aukett + Heese Frankfurt, to co-founder Lutz Heese for £214,000, reducing its holding to 25% and aligning it with the Berlin office structure. The company expects to book an accounting gain of £78,000 and will retain 50% of management charges from both offices despite the reduced equity stake, freeing capital to redeploy toward its core Smart Core software business where management sees faster-scaling recurring revenues.
The sale is immaterial in scale—the Frankfurt stake carried £300,000 book value and contributed £54,000 in half-year profits against Built Cybernetics' £9.9m half-year revenue and £0.5m trading loss. The move signals management's strategic pivot away from architecture services toward software-driven recurring revenue, but the capital released (£214,000 proceeds) is modest relative to the company's recent £0.57m fundraising and does not materially alter the investment thesis.
Insights assembled by AI. Editor-reviewed and grounded in tickstock’s coverage and proprietary knowledge graph.
Content is for informational purposes only, not financial advice.
