Belvoir Group PLC’s Dorian Gonsalves speaks to Proactive London’s Andrew Scott after announcing the strategic alliance with the Nottingham Building Society (NBS).

Gonsalves speaks of NBS wanting to “focus on its core business” and says that what amounts to NBS getting out of estate agency is a, “slight change of direction for them.”

The alliance is likely to result in Nottingham Building Society making the closure of some branches, and there are around 120 staff are now in an NBS redundancy consultation process.

The deal to take on the NBS agency business will give Belvoir an additional £30,000 annual revenue and some of the NBS outlets will be occupied by Belvoir franchisees in what Gonsalves calls a “genuine co-branding arrangement.”

It is also anticipated that the existing Belvoir Group outlets will have access to NBS financial products.

Speaking about the Group’s experience of handling lockdown, Gonsalves says that they planned for a period of four to five months.

With 80% of their property revenues coming from recurring lettings income, when lockdown ended after just two months, they found themelves relatively unaffected by events.

Correction and clarification: When first published this story was not clear that branch closures and redundancy processes were taking place in NBS, not Belvoir. Also that the £30,000 revenue to Belvoir is per annum, not per month as first stated. We apologise for this and are pleased to have altered the story to bring accuracy.