Franchise chain Belvoir is marking 20 years in business with growth that should see it with some 200 outlets by the end of this year.

The firm last week announced that its income from management service fees – what the franchisees pay – went up 14% to stand at £1.76m in the first six months of this year.

Founder Mike Goddard told EYE that this is a combination of “a few” more franchisees and existing businesses doing better.

Belvoir charges its franchisees 12% of turnover.

But although management service fee income was up, profits barely changed – the firm recording post-tax profits of £0.6m, down from £0.61m for the first half of last year.

But according to Goddard, 2015 will not so much be a year of two halves, but a year of two decades.

He said the first half of this year and the second will be totally unalike.

He said the general election caused enormous uncertainty and hit franchise recruitment badly.

“With all the talk of rent controls, a possible Mansion Tax and a ban on tenant fees, people who might have been interested in taking on a property franchise held back.

“Since the election, we have taken on four new franchisees and have more in the pipeline,” he said.

He is less worried about the changes to landlords’ taxation, announced in the summer budget.

He said: “We think these will mostly affect larger landlords, whereas our typical landlord has one to three properties.”

The biggest single difference to Belvoir has been its acquisition in July of Newton Fallowell, a business with 31 offices in the midlands.

He likens this acquisition – which sees Belvoir stepping into a multi-brand strategy for the first time – to Martin & Co’s purchase of the Xperience business.

The purchase was for an initial sum of £3.9m, with a further £2.4m based on earn-out.

Goddard said that Belvoir is now actively looking for further acquisitions – anything from networks of 10-15 offices to those of over 200.

The firm, which originally specialised in lettings only, plans to have more than one-third of its outlets offering estate agency services by the end of this year.