James Evans, the CEO of Douglas & Gordon (D&G), who 12 months ago acquired the sales business of the estate agency from Foxtons for a nominal consideration less than a year after selling it for £15.5m, has already embarked on his next venture after D&G went into administration.
Evans, who previously worked for Foxtons, has set-up a new estate agent company called Brewham Holding Limited, registered to his home, near Bruton in Somerset, which he bought two years ago.
The new company was only incorporated on 14 February, which indicates that he was planning ahead before D&G was put into administration, as revealed by EYE last week.
We announced on Friday that Grant Thornton has been appointed as administrators of the business.
A spokesperson for Grant Thornton UK LLP said: “I can confirm that Philip Stephenson and Oliver Haunch of Grant Thornton UK LLP were appointed as joint administrator to Douglas & Gordon Ltd. on Friday, 24 February 2023.
“The administrators are continuing to carry out their statutory obligations and further information will be made available in due course.”
Comments (4)
Possibly preparing for some kind of pre-pack arrangement. I can understand why some don’t like pre-packs, and whilst they don’t always achieve the best outcome for creditors, more often than not they do the important job of protecting jobs and giving continuity to customers.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the heavy costs are in the branches – dispose of those and D&G is most likely a good old business
I wonder if former D&G staff and suppliers would agree?
I met James pre-Foxtons, he was running a business that had the right balance and a respected brand
I don’t think its fair to blame him for what has happened or for a strategy decision that in my opinion, is wrong.
Foxtons and Douglas and Gordon were two different companies with different client bases. A bit like in CRM some people liked Vebra, others liked Dezrez, others preferred Reapit…..
What Foxtons have done is what happened to the Vebra, Core, CFP, Jupix and Expert Agent users and the attempt to force everyone onto Alto- some will switch, others will stubbornly stick with what they know and a lot will migrate to something thats more them.
The people who used Douglas and Gordon in the past made a decision not to use Foxtons. Its down to Foxtons to keep hold of those clients now and someone needs to recognise how long term success is achieved when buying turnover through acquisition.
I only met James briefly for a couple of meeting a few years back- he’s good.