The Property Franchise Group, whose brands include Martin & Co, Whitegates and EweMove, announced a set of strong results this morning.
Group revenue rose 11% to £11.2m last year, up from £10.1m in 2017.
Adjusted EBITDA rose 15%, to £5.1m, and although pre-tax profits remained the same at £4.3m, the 2017 figure included a net exceptional gain of £0.7m. Excluding this, pre-tax profits rose 17%.
Management services fees increased 14%, to £9.4m, and the year ended with cash in the bank of £2.3m.
The group also reported that all six of its brands increased revenue, with total revenue of £92m, up from £85m the year before.
A total of 60 franchisees had annual revenue of over £500,000, with 11 earning over £1m.
There were 28 acquisitions at franchisee level, while the group recruited 26 new franchisees.
The online/hybrid brand EweMove grew sales completions by 22%, and lettings by 26%.
However, the number of trading offices in the group dropped, from 403 down to 377 by the end of last year.
CEO Ian Wilson said: “We are very pleased to be able to report another year of improvement across all key metrics.
“Our traditional high street brands benefited from further deployment of digital marketing ‘know-how’ instilled by our hybrid brand.
“Encouragingly, EweMove grew its market share across those locations where it operates and delivered a pre-tax profit of £0.4m in a year when most competing hybrid estate agents produced losses.
“We entered 2019 with a significant improvement in our positive net cash position and the highest level of recurring revenues in the Group’s history. In addition, our profitable and established hybrid business provides further opportunities for growth.
“The board is confident about the prospects for 2019 and envisage that the loss of tenant fee revenue and continued regulatory intervention in our sector will create opportunities for further consolidation and growth.”
He said that last year had been tough for estate agents and letting agents: “Many businesses were proud to stand still or suffer only modest retrenchment. We continued to grow.”
Chairman and founder Richard Matin said that the group continues to be heavily weighted towards lettings, adding that “the future of the UK property industry is franchising”.
A final dividend is proposed of 6%, making a total of 8.4p for last year, up from 7.5p in 2017.
Comments (10)
Well done, good results under current market conditions.
Keep positive, keep focused.
Looks we have someone stalking the flock. Far be it from me to suggest they actually get a life
They have got quite a lot of ”Twilight Zones” !!!!!!
This is the misleading temporary broken link you get when you google Ewemove Cardiff .Its not waiting to be mended The Cardiff franchisee has gone
https://www.ewemove.com/estate-agents/cardiff/buyers/
Call me old fashioned but what happens if you want to sell a property on Ewemove in Wales?
Eye Tea
Bristling with indignation It sounds very much to me that you have not undertaken any reseach yourself I have made it my business too as a potential investor in TPFG
There are some very successful franchisees but a disproprtionate amount of failures Good shepherding looks after the whole flock not just the prize rams
In the last 12months there have been over 18 Ewemove franchisees which have gone to the wall Go and visit Companies House and pour through their accounts and see the losses.It isnot an edifying sight I assure you
Results count. Everything else is just noise. Well done PFG against the current backdrop of uncertainty.
They do but that comment shows a distinct lack of empathy for the poor unfortunate failed franchisees at Ewemove The collateral damage. is a little bit more than just noise How many franchisees failures were there at Belvoir?
There must be a special place in Hell reserved for people who comment on PIE, positioning themselves as ‘all-knowing’ yet by simply opening their mouths (or typing words) instantly reveal their own stupidity.
Most of this comment is unresearched drivel. And what all successful EweMove franchisees would quite rightly ask is, “why would an individual commentator seek to destroy my own personal business, which is doing very well thank you”.
Has HillofWad71 given any thought to the successful franchisees who he or she seeks to undermine, before posting?
Perhaps HillofWad71 has a EweMove franchisee close to them, who is taking his or her market share and doesn’t like it, and perhaps more telling, doesn’t know how to compete with the UKs best performing Estate Agency as far as customers are concerned. And surely the only opinion that really matters is that of the customers, who continue to heap praise on EweMove, unlike someone who comments on this forum and clearly feels threatened by EweMove’s customer service focussed innovation.
Having been to the Sheep Pen and met the team there to undertake my own research about EweMove, I suggest HillofWad71 does the same before s/he comments again.
Pretty robust set of figures for TPFG which bearing in mind a challenging market is certainly very satisfactory.The figures don’t lie.
EWEMOVE
Noted that revenue at Ewemove has increased up to Dec 2018 but at what cost???
We are now 3 months into this financial year.
However 2019 has already heralded in a number of casualties amongst the individual franchisees at Ewemove ,the failure rate does not appear to be slowing . This year already Barnsley Cardiff Doncaster Laindon Park Salford Altrincham and others have disappeared
The elephants in the room
Stevenage is still showing as up and running but the franchisee has started up his own Lettings firm
All these failures heavily disguised on site as a computer glitch. The lost sheep
There seems to be a huge disconnect between “the nice guys”image at Ewemove with the number of individual failures with life changing personal losses for the individuals involved .TPFG’s gain at their expense .
Their individual plight spelled out all too clearly at Companies House
Just take a look at Doncaster which has just gone west They have had to hock the house
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/09995889/filing-history
In addition this year have seen many migrate from Ewemove to other TPFG franchisees
Sure no loss overall to Group revenue unless some slippage but this is contrary to what TPFG have said previously
In Sept 2017 it was announced
“EweMove already has 100+ franchisees and we believe it can be scaled up rapidly over the next two years.”
Also went onto say
”
However, EweMove is a very different proposition. It is a fully-functioning franchisor with its own proprietary technology “EweReka” sitting on an industrial scale platform. Its HQ staff are based in Cleckheaton, Bradford and culturally, it is very different from our traditional high street brands. Consequently, our intention was always to keep EweMove separate from our existing brands and benefit from some of its digital marketing expertise, without needing to FOLD IT INTO OUR TRADIITIONAL SUPPORT INFRASTRUCTURE”
Yet he moves the largest recent acquistion from Sheffield to Whitegates in 2019 having only just liveried up the office in Ewemove colours .Hardly a ringing endorsement
Chichester and Corby who appeared to be struggling have migrated to Martins
The flock is being decimated
Cardiff which has just gone still have properties advertised on Ewemove’s website .Ironically Wales the home of the sheep is now without a Ewemove franchise at all
Maybe TPFG could have saved themselves some money by offering the top15 Ewemove performers to migrate with golden hellos
rather than multi million pound goodbyes to the founders who couldnt leave quick enough
Not sure where you are getting your facts from but Corby Ewemove did not migrate to Martins, it bought a Martins and has now re branded both branches to Whitegates….. I am sure he would be delighted to take your call to clarify the situation.