Hunters has confirmed its intention to float on AIM on July 2, with the goal of becoming the largest estate agency brand in the UK within three years.

It will be valued at around £16.9m when it lists. About 22% of the company will be available for public trading.

Of the current shareholders, Nigel Wray holds the biggest individual stake of 18.8%, worth £3.2m. Chairman Kevin Hollinrake, who is now MP for Thirsk and Malton, has 15%, while co-founder and company president John Waterhouse owns 14.7%.

Wray, a new shareholder who invested in the private fund-raising round prior to the listing, is a prominent businessman and chairman of rugby club Saracens.

The firm, founded in 1992 by Kevin Hollinrake and his brother Keith, moved into franchising in 2006. The group had 153 branches as at the end of May, of which 142 are franchised with the remaining 11 owned by the group.

Hunters plans further growth by acquisitions.

It plans to acquire small franchises of between five and 20 branches, and also “significant strategic acquisitions of competitors”. The directors say they intend to look to acquire one medium to large estate agency franchise of between 20 and 200 franchisees, in each of the first two years following admission to AIM, and then every two or three years thereafter.

Hunters also plans to convert existing estate agencies and small, wholly-owned estate agency networks into new franchisees. Its target is to add at least 20 new branches to its network each year.

Hunters charges its franchisees a monthly fee which is equivalent to 8% of their revenue. Franchisees also contribute 2% of their monthly revenue to the central marketing fund.

Benefits for franchisees are said to include brand recognition, centralised support services and economies of scale. These, say Hunters, include purchasing discounts from key suppliers, “in particular, Rightmove and Zoopla”.

Hunters says it estimates that there are some 25,000 estate agency branches in the UK, of which 15,000 undertake sales activities. It estimates there are over 8,000 brands.

It also makes clear its confidence in the high street model, saying: “Online estate agents have challenged the traditional estate agency model but the movement in market share to online has been minimal to date and low-cost agency models have been around for a long time.

“The directors believe that a local, on the ground service is still the most effective customer offering, and that online services are unlikely to gain significant traction in the foreseeable future in their current formats.”