Chestertons on the acquisition trail

Chestertons has purchased the lettings business of Morgan Randall, a successful independent agency operating across Canary Wharf, Shoreditch and Islington.

The deal, which completed on Monday 3^rd August, sees Chestertons absorb Morgan Randall’s substantial lettings book and a number of key staff members into its existing Canary Wharf, Tower Bridge and Islington offices.

It will not be taking over the branches, nor be using the Morgan Randall brand beyond a short transition period

Guy Gittins, Managing Director of Chestertons, commented:

“Following our comprehensive restructuring of the business two years ago, Chestertons is in a very strong financial position, which has allowed us to commence the next stage of our growth plan, which is focused on expanding the business through acquisition.”

“Our lettings business has grown rapidly over the past few years and we have invested heavily in new technology, processes and personnel to make it one of the strongest lettings departments in London.

“It has also given us the ability to scale up and integrate additional acquisitions, such as Morgan Randall.”

Canopy appointments

Canopy, the FinTech platform, has appointed to its board:

Tracy DeGroose (Executive chair of Newsworks), Spiro Margaris (Global No1. FinTech Influencer / WeFox Board Advisor), Sabine VanderLinden (InsureTech influencer), David Clamp (ex-Head of Technology – HISCOX) and Alex Underwood (ex-General Counsel of Brevan Howard)

The company says the new Board will play a pivotal role in shaping its financial ecosystem for the benefit of all stakeholders in the rental value chain and that the Board brings significant experience in building trusted consumer brands and strong governance.

mio launches new Application Programming Interface (API)

mio, the estate egents sales progression platform, has released the first in a series of sophisticated APIs to make self-service integration with the platform simple. The API will increase the number of automated updates mio receives on the progress of transactions reducing phone calls and emails between Agents, Conveyancers, Surveyors and Mortgage Brokers.

The data received will flow directly into the mio platform meaning that estate egents and their buyers and sellers are automatically updated on the status of key milestones in a transaction, for, example ‘Searches Ordered’ or ‘Mortgage Valuation Received’.

Commenting on the launch, Emma Vigus, mio MD said:

“We know that everyone involved in a residential property transaction spends a great deal of time chasing other parties for updates.  This new API will ensure that we can empower Agents with the information they need to simply and effectively keep their Buyers and Sellers up to date.

“For those parties who share data with us, we offer the mio Chain View in return ensuring that all parties can understand the status of every transaction in a chain. This is a crucial USP for mio ensuring that those parties who share their data receive something valuable, in return.”