The UK’s largest estate agent, Countrywide, is to buy back its own shares at a cost of up to £20m.

It will be using brokers Jefferies International to make the purchases, starting yesterday and continuing to March 31.

The objective is to reduce the issued share capital of Countrywide.

It will keep the shares as treasury stock, which means they could be available for reissue.

Countrywide floated on the stock market – for a second time – in March last year with a starting price of 350p per share, which rapidly went up.

Over the last six months, the business – valued at £990m – has seen its shares drop sharply from a high of nearly 700p.

Yesterday’s announcement sent its shares shooting up from 454.90p to a peak of 480p before finishing at 469p.

The company said that given the shareholding in Countrywide of Oaktree Capital Management (UK), it could increase the percentage of Oaktree’s voting rights to between 30% and 50%.

This could trigger a “mandatory offer” under City rules on takeovers and mergers.

However, Countrywide said that if necessary, it would consult with the Panel on Takeovers and Mergers and obtain further shareholder approval should it look as though such a situation would arise.

Another property firm which has been busy buying back its own shares is Rightmove.

A poster on Eye said yesterday: “Rightmove has purchased 30,831,067 of its own shares since announcing a share buy-back programme on 28 December 2007. The price must have averaged between £10 and £20 per share, probably at the upper end. That’s a lot of money to syphon out of the industry: all money that agents have handed over.”