LSL, the parent company of estate agents including Your Move, Reeds Rains, Marsh & Parsons and Davis Tate, has announced strong results for last year with revenue and pre-tax profits up.

Group revenue was £300.6m in 2015, up 5% on 2014, and pre-tax profits were £38.6m, up 21% on the year before (£31.9m).

LSL said this morning that a strong second half performance delivered full-year underlying operating profits of £42.9m – a record result for the group. This was after a slower first half in the estate agency division.

Continued momentum in the estate agency division brought in 5% overall revenue growth, while lettings income grew by 12%. Altogether the estate agency division brought in £236.5m.

Marsh & Parsons delivered revenue growth of 9% and profit growth of 6% “despite a challenging prime central London market”.

Last year the group acquired Thomas Morris estate agents and 30 lettings books. In January this year, it launched a national media campaign promoting the Your Move brand – the UK’s largest single-brand estate agency, and one of 12 estate agency brands owned by LSL.

The firm also reported arranging total mortgage lending of £14.5bn, up from £11.6bn the year before.

Chairman Simon Embley said that LSL as a whole employed 5,181 people by the end of the year “and our success is ultimately dependent on the customer service provided by our staff in all parts of our business across the entire UK. I would like to thank all of our staff.”

He added that this year started positively across LSL, although he expected to see a flat housing market in terms of transactions.

The group also reiterated its strategy of driving operating profit per branch to between £80,000 and £100,000 per annum, and expanding the number of Marsh & Parsons branches to 36 by 2019. It will also make further acquisitions of both estate agency businesses and lettings books.

As at the end of last year, LSL had 538 branches, including two virtual branches.

Today’s results also show that LSL remains a committed investor in Zoopla.

An anniversary offer allowed LSL to subscribe for a further 619,318 shares at the £2.20 IPO price with a 20% discount. At the same time, a further 619,318 shares were sold through the anniversary member offer, with proceeds of £0.3m.

The value of LSL’s 2.7% stake in Zoopla was calculated to be £27.1m as at the end of last year.