Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Rightmove Plc, a Web site listing properties across Britain, will sell a quarter of the stock held by its four owners in an initial public offering. It may value the company at as much as 400 million pounds ($698 million).

HBOS Plc, the U.K.'s largest mortgage lender, Countrywide Plc, Royal Sun Alliance Group Plc and Connells will cut their combined stake in Rightmove to around 75 percent in an offering scheduled before March, said Ed Williams, managing director for the four-year-old company, in an interview today.

``This will give us greater flexibility in the future,'' said Williams. ``We are not raising more money, this is about the original investors realizing some of their money.''

Rightmove, based in Milton Keynes, England, is one of six national online property Web sites, and it's the only one not owned by a newspaper group. Rightmove's Web site was the U.K.'s ninth-most used site in January, with 4.5 million visitors looking at 340 million pages, Williams said.

The company charges estate agents a single monthly fee to advertise an unlimited number of properties. The U.K. property market is recovering from a slowdown after the Bank of England cut interest rates in August.

It's currently listing details for about 660,000 houses and apartments. This is estimated to be about two-thirds of all properties currently on sale in England and Wales, Williams said. It's used by more than 60 percent of estate agents and 20 of the 25 largest U.K. homebuilders, he said.

Sales of 18 Million Pounds

Sales last year rose 98 percent to 18 million pounds ($32 million), and operating profit, excluding costs related to development and the IPO, was 8.7 million pounds. It had sales of 5 million pounds in 2003, said Williams.

Daily Mail & General Trust Plc, publisher of the Daily Mail tabloid newspaper, paid 48 million pounds in December for the owner of the primelocation.com Web site. Primelocation had sales of 4.1 million pounds in the first nine months of 2005, compared with 4.7 million in the whole of 2004, according to a statement at the time of the acquisition.

Rightmove decided to sell shares now rather than delay until after the introduction next year of home-information packs, , Williams said. The government will require home sellers to provide these information kits.

Analysts at ABN Amro Holding NV put a value of as much as 400 million pounds on Rightmove, the Financial Times said Jan. 25. Williams declined to comment on that report.

Rightmove management owns a small stake of the company. UBS AG is managing the IPO, and Panmure Gordon is co-lead manager.

To contact the reporter on this story: Elisa Martinuzzi in Milan at emartinuzzi@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 15, 2006 11:02 EST