Franchise group Belvoir has bought a 16-branch sales and lettings business.
Goodchilds, itself a franchise business, will retain its name.
The purchase, for £3.26m, means that Bevloir now has over 200 outlets.
Half (£1.63m) of the purchase price will be funded by Belvoir’s existing resources. The other half will be deferred in two equal parts, payable six and 12 months following the acquisition, and will be funded from a placing of new shares in Belvoir.
Altogether, it is planned to raise £3.6m from this share placing.
Belvoir has also made it plain that it plans to acquire other franchised networks.
Goodchilds operates across the west midlands and was founded by David Warke in 2004.
It now becomes part of the Newton Fallowell group which Belvoir acquired in July and which is led by Mark Newton.
Dorian Gonsalves, Belvoir’s director of commercial and franchising, said: “The acquisition represents a clear strategic fit with our acquisition strategy of building a network based on multi-brand franchises, which will increase market share and geographic coverage.
“It is also an exciting milestone in Belvoir’s growth, as it takes the number of offices in the network to 211 and we are now managing over 35,000 properties.
“When Belvoir floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2012 we made a clear promise to our network and our investors that we would reach 200 offices before the end of 2016.
“The acquisition of Goodchilds just two months after the acquisition of Newton Fallowell now puts us well ahead of this target, and with further acquisitions in the pipeline we are looking forward to breaking new barriers in the future.”
Goodchilds’ business is 70% lettings and 30% sales. It includes among its franchisees Michael Warke, younger brother of the founder.
David Warke is quitting the business and plans to focus on property development.
- Separately, Strutt & Parker has acquired Edwards & Elliott, with three branches in Surrey and Berkshire. The acquisition takes the number of Strutt & Parker offices to 43.
Comments (7)
I simply cannot believe this…….why, on earth, would Belvoir keep buying high street agency outlets when the death of the high street agent has already been declared??
It beggers belief. Didn’t they see the funeral procession, don’t they listen to Mr Quirk, have they not seen Purplebricks and Tepilo ads on TV??
And to think, they could have invested their money in crowdfunding one of the new online breed that has taken over the industry.
“Software house trying to create a property portal” what are you getting at there Simon? Are you announcing that is what you are up to or telling us one of your competitors is thinking of doing that?
Robert, think you know they’ve already tried that one, with as much success as the Sinclair C5
And the best thing is that with all that cash Dave is quite receptive to begging letters. So far today i’ve sent him:
– get rich quick scheme in dragging iceberg to the Middle East aka Brewsters Millions
– Pet squirrel with broken paw needs treatment
– software house trying to create property portal.
Only one of those is pie in the sky…mmmmh pie….
Nice one David – I always knew you would succeed! As Whaley says, this is a great time of change and opportunity, and it has very little to do with the on-line agency non-threat!
Just on a wider point I’m sure someone will correct me , maybe the Winterthur days but surely this period we’re in and continuing to see if mergers and acquisitions is pretty well unprecedented and for all the talk of online v offline is the really agent of change at the moment.
The industries going to look very different in the next couple of years. An ever bigger split between the corporates and smaller independents
Good fit and pleased for Dave and his brothers who built up a great business there.
Dave I’m assuming the cars on the way round to pick me up ?