Countrywide is said to be close to shutting 62 offices and making redundancies.
We invited Countrywide, the UK’s largest agent, to comment.
We also asked whether the closures would all be in London as per the Countrywide statement last week, and to give some idea as to the number of redundancies involved.
The Countrywide response did not directly answer any of our questions but did not deny what we put to them. It also confirmed that changes to branches are involved and suggested that a consultation process – necessary where there could be redundancies – could be getting under way.
Sam Tyrer, managing director of retail at Countrywide, told EYE: “It is Countrywide’s intention to align its business in a way that will best service its much-valued customers.
“Within the retail arm of our business, we are proposing some changes to our branch footprint, in consultation with our people, as we work to align our portfolio to growth.
“These proposals form part of the ‘Building our Future’ strategy, focused on having the right people in the right places to meet our customers’ needs, bringing our estate agency and lettings businesses together and driving the business forward.
“These changes will enable us to deliver a better, more personalised customer experience delivered by our great people.”
Last week, in its results for the first half of this year, chief executive Alison Platt warned shareholders that Countrywide would “not meet last year’s results at the EBITDA level” – in other words, would not make the same profits after costs as it did in 2015.
The report also said: “In London we are already consolidating some of our brands and branches.”
It went on: “As part of the Building our Future strategy, we will continue to identify ways to consolidate our brands and rationalise the branch network.”
As EYE has also reported, we understand from usually reliable sources that the full programme of closures could involve 200 branches, although Countrywide told us that this figure is wide of the mark.
Comments (28)
I wonder if our old owners fancy buying us back for a quid? 😀
p.s – Wardy – I agree – It seems that the focus is once again on FS as they have recently had a recruitment drive & now our mortgage man is expected to deliver 15 sign ups per month.
Over the past 10 years our old mortgage man averaged 25.
A year! 😀
This company is unbelievable.
Wardy – I think we may have worked together at CW old chap……
Whilst the board members were old fashioned, since they’ve left the company has got worse and worse!
I don’t agree that middle and senior management at CW were the gods of estate agency at all. A lot of them made it through the ranks based on financial services and not necessarily being ‘good estate agents’. I remember a time when the focus was just on FS at branch level and they could even afford to run agency at a loss. Old fashioned and out of date and if you sent half of them out on a val they wouldn’t know where to put themselves. These guys had to be the first to go if CW was ever going to survive. The board must have realised this and are now sorting the chaff. Too little to late.
It doesn’t surprise me. Since last year when our own company was purchased by Countrywide, they have promised plenty, delivered zero!
The whole “retail” spin is utter b*llocks, their creative ideas patronizing at best (Do you really think its a brilliant idea to email your offices with “M.A.Monday” Team Frank vs Team Tim with the best performing offices having a free ice cream?) and they clearly operate as one huge entity when in fact the best part about our company was the ability to differentiate between our localities. The senior management have undergone restructure after restructure & they have completely hamstrung their companies.
I have never worked for a company with such low morale, personally I can see this lurching from one disaster to another.
LA201625 – how much closer can someone be than this person to knowing what we all know ‘from afar’…
I’d take MrM07’s opinion, who’s actually worked within CW rather than you, who hasn’t.
Your opinions are based on assumption. CW has produced some top notch Estate Agents, this is a fact.
I know about of of the above, I worked there for 3 years. FS focus days, Enhanced marketing packages for £60, CCS focus days, etc etc. Its all nonsense.
That’s fine by me – seeing as MrM07’s opinion is apparently very similar to mine.
I’ve said CW is a mess, ever since the old school bods were removed. But what I did say was that some excellent estate agents have come through the ranks at CW and gone onto bigger and better things – this is fact as aforementioned.
You’re opinion has no substance, and only basing it on what others have said and not what you’ve witnessed first hand.
I’m not getting into a petty argument with you, but having worked for CW and know people who have as well and have gone onto setting up their own successful Estate Agents I’d say my opinion has a little more validity over someone judging from afar.
Have a good day.
‘…but having worked for CW and know people who have as well and have gone onto setting up their own successful Estate Agents I’d say my opinion has a little more validity over someone judging from afar.’
No doubt you could be absolutely correct. In exactly the same way, of course, that the opinions of the owners of some 7000 Estate Agent branches advertising their properties on OnTheMarket.com I’d say have a little more validity over ‘someone judging from afar’.
Doesn’t stop them making those ‘judgements’ based upon what they see/hear/feel/are told to say, though…
You have a good day also. I’m actually having a corker!
HAHA! You just can’t not involve OTM in any conversation can you?
First time mentioned in this one – and the point made was totally related and relevant.
You only seem to comment on two subjects – pot and kettle springs to mind here…
Can someone explain what countrywide retail is. And why it is only operational outside of their London offices.
I don’t think they even know, Eamonn.
Its brings all the services togther under one roof – Residential Sales and Lettings in particular – I understand – the idea to be more ‘Retail’.
The lettings and sales departments are so far apart from each other, a good business would work in unison – but the company is too big for it’s own good and run differently according to the brands.
What would make perfect sense, would be to brand all of the offices as one, run one way but split into it’s usual regions. I even made this suggestion to my regional and he agreed but what’s common sense to the average person is too simple for these business people.
So many good agents have come from Countrywide from when they were a dominant force in many towns they operated in, it’s a shame really that they are now more focused on being a FTSE company than actually being an Estate Agents.
LA201625
When you say ‘So many good agents have come from Countrywide from when they were a dominant force in many towns they operated in…’ it must be acknowledged that many of those were ‘bought in’ and not manufactured on the premises.
Those that were home-grown were allowed to do so on the back of the skill-sets of the people that the Corporates bought as part of their independent agency acquisitions.
In the main – their own people couldn’t nurture a f@rt by feeding an elephant a bathful of beans.
Pee – Have you actually worked for countrywide? The dominant independent agents within a couple mile radius of where I work are former employees of Countrywide who started as Saturday workers and now own their own agents.
It’s quick to assume that they just bought up every half decent Estate Agent, but that’s an ignorant view in my opinion. Even in my 3 years at CW I did learn a lot from the ways they operate some good some bad.
Also, those who reached board level which have now been relieved of their duties to be replaced by businessmen and woman worked their way up from junior level to board management. Since their replacement as they were deemed outdated and replaced by people who have worked in big corporate companies but never sold a house in their lives has seen CW decline at a rapid rate, which now involves people losing their jobs and offices closing. This is no coincidence.
LA201625
I rephrase what I originally said for clarity – those you describe as ‘good ones of today’ are what they are because of the legacy of past & previous GREAT ones.
Their training was written and delivered in the main by real, decent Estate Agents who had forgotten more about the job than the majority of new blood will ever know..
Unfortunately they were beaten with the Numbers Game Stick so hard and so often that the deepest scars never healed – but they in the main kept at least some of their belief that we are there for the customer first and foremost.
I was referring to ‘The Management’ in my elephant & beans comment – those whose ‘retail’ CV looks amazeballs (credit: Hayley Ridal) but who have never walked in the moccasins… and never will.
They’d be eaten alive.
Blimey, you don’t have waffle on!
I see you avoided my question about working for CW, so I’d assume you’re judging from afar.
Worked for them? – not exactly.
Judging from afar? – how close do you need to be?
Short enough?
This is what happens when you get rid of people who actually know the industry, albeit old school and replace them with people who’ve never sold a house in their lives but apparently have good business acumen.
I don’t feel the captain of this ship is steering with any skill as WideEyedAgent71 said missing icebergs is essential, I think they need someone who knows how the ships sails first !
The changes actually make good business sense – How long do you run an unprofitable office? Why have double the cost of two of your brands in the same high street when one will do? Resoucres can then be put into profitable areas/investment Etc. I beleive there are a large number of vacancies that can be filled – through a slow down in recruitment leading up to this moment – which could lessen the number of redundancies. Titantic is may be, but even that turned to avoid the iceberg rather than running in to it head on!
Or perhaps ask yourself why those branches were unprofitable? That should be the first question to uncovering their issues (although there are many more thereafter). They need to accept that their business model and modus operandi does not fit every branch and every region/city/town they are in, but they are too big to be able to operate different branches under different structures. Unless you are Hamptons…
Unfortunately the ‘retail’ aspect of it once again means that targets, profits, KPI’s, etc are the language of the gods there and as the reports go up the pressure comes down as each person is out to massage their figures enough to save their own skin…. Don’t get me wrong, we are in business to make money, but when you are the most expensive in your town working with your hands tied behind your back as you have no influence over the centralised offices, call centres and the like where more than half the work is handled by someone who has never met the tenant or seen the property, your client sees themselves paying through the nose for very little.
The titanic still struck that iceburg and sank, why? It was too big to turn in time!
“Within the retail arm of our business, we are proposing some changes to our branch footprint”
sounds like son of Quirk
Sam Tyrer, you have just exposed yourself as a PR babble-speak twit. What you really meant was “we are failing and need to cut our cloth accordingly”. Change your PR agency quickly. I suspect your press release was written by a 22 year old Uni leaver who got a 2.2 at best.
It has to be the worst business model in the world. Spend millions buying businesses. Run them into the ground. Shut them.
It’s a ‘leaky bucket’ and they are running out of cork to plug it!! They buy a business, the landlords leave through the holes in the bucket, they buy another to top it up. Reporting they have made the same money as last year is fine, but it begs the question of have they offset the money they have spent buying in order to do so when they report that? Short answer… No! In the end, inevitably, the buying has to stop (so the corks to plug the leaky bucket and water to top it up cease to exist), the inevitable exit of landlords continues (the water continues to flow from the leaky bucket) and the bucket runs dry!
The overhaul they need to turn the titanic around is not achieveable in any short period of time and is certainly not heading in the right direction.
“These changes will enable us to deliver a better, more personalised customer experience delivered by our great people.”
Seems to me the great people all exit stage left very quickly…. I wouldn’t want to be sat in a hot seat justifying my figures in the days to come….