Online agent easyProperty has been sold by the eProp Services Group PLC, parent company of The Guild and Fine & Country.
Industry supplier firm Evolve will complete the purchase within days, at the beginning of August.
Established in 2007, Hampshire-based Evolve provides services to the property industry, services which it says will also be available to the current easyProperty licensees and their clients. Products include photography, floor plans, viewings, EPCs, inventories, check ins and check outs and, in Scotland, Home Reports.
David Brierley, CEO and founder of Evolve, said: “We are very excited about the acquisition and see it as a huge opportunity for the industry to engage in something different.
“We are also extremely pleased to have the financial support of Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of easyJet, as a significant shareholder and owner of the easy family of brands, who has a very personal interest in seeing the brand succeed.”
He said Evolve’s strategy will be very much centred around the existing licensees and focusing on one region at a time to organically grow the business where easyProperty already has a presence.
“We believe in a local first strategy, where we will concentrate on each area and build that until it is covered in orange before moving on to the next area and then the next,” said Brierley.
Initially, Evolve will focus on easyProperty’s presence in Wales and South Yorkshire while continuing to support existing licensees.
Brierley said: “We have selected these areas because there is already a strong easyProperty presence there and the licensees in these regions are particularly active. Once we have covered these areas in orange, we will set our sights on expanding the brand in other untapped areas.
“As a property centric business, we are excited about our involvement with easyProperty and look forward to what the future undoubtedly holds.”
There is no information as to the price paid, and no statement from eProp Services.
Comments (18)
I wonder how much the seller had to pay the buyer to take this off their hands ??
“It ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it”
Keep polishing that orange t@rd
Why?
I wonder if the still have the hearse they used to launch.? Seems like it would come in useful for moving this corpse around.
The only successful E in South Yorkshire is known by today’s youth as Molly and by today’s agents of a certain age as ” were a great Baker our dad ” ….
Its like a bad dose of the clap being passed around nobody wants.
Just proving that there’s a market even for a dead horse where the value is in production of dog food. Who in their right mind would see any market here though, do they still have branches?
Easyproperty’s inventory for the whole of Wales (including Warrington, which I didn’t know was in the Principality, or Hereford for that matter!) currently has a mighty 95 properties listed with 12 showing as Sold STC. This amply demonstrates the traction they have gained over the years with their multi-million marketing budget. I strongly urge you to have a look at the Wales listings on their website, I know the country is often very hilly but their photos over emphasize the point I feel……………
“Nice and easy does it from now on”……………….
cover every area orange may i suggest moving to Holland
I should think Fine and Country are better off out of it, it is so at odds with their brand. As ever the whole on line industry evolves and will do so for many years with lots of changes ahead, I suspect the whole landscape for cheap online agency will change with small and large players all trying to have a stake in it.
“The future’s bright the future’s orange”
Think that’s been done already.
A deal brokered by Poundland…………..
Undoubtably, the future holds some future. Was this press release taken from the new W1A scripts?
Expand in regions where EasyProperty already has a presence???? Are there any?
easyOptimism?
…….don’t you just love those first Press Releases.
……..make the Planet Orange? That’a a lot of painting – best get on with it as Stelios won’t be painting.
Was easyproperty not meant to be a booming success years ago?
Who in their right mind would sell their biggest asset with such a budget brand? Totally cheapens the product.
Colour me shocked.