Two of the country’s best known agencies have been united in one over-arching company with revenues of £100m.

The merger is between Romans and Leaders, with 27 and 120 branches respectively, propelling the joint organisation up the league table in terms of largest agencies.

At the same time, the combined group has raised a further £35m to help fund a continuation of the successful buy-and-build strategy employed by both companies, of acquiring quality lettings and estate agency businesses to add to their branch networks.

Joint chief executives of the new company, Property Services Holdings, are Romans’ Peter Coles and Leaders’ Paul Weller.

The new group will have over 40,000 properties under management, as well as sales, new homes, land, planning, surveying, mortgage and auctions arms.

Both firms are already highly acquisitive in their own right and both are individually backed by the same private equity group, Bowmark Capital.

Bowmark backed a £48m MBO of Leaders in 2010. It went on to support a £50m MBO of Romans in 2013.

Both Leaders and Romans are successful and entrepreneurial firms, each starting with just one branch.

With a total of 147 branches as of now, each firm will retain its own autonomous identity, and Coles and Weller remain in charge of their respective firms.

Leaders, which has not gone down the franchising route, has expanded almost entirely by acquisition and has country-wide presence. Founded as a lettings business, it has recently ventured into sales, but the large bulk of its business remains in lettings.

Romans has stayed close to its Thames Valley roots and has built a highly successful, multi-faceted business.

Coles said: “With Bowmark’s backing, Romans has continued to expand across the south-east.

“The merger with Leaders gives us access to a national platform and deep buy-and-build expertise, and will create new opportunities for both businesses as we enter the next phase of growth.”

Bowmark partner Mark Salter said: “Leaders and Romans are outstanding businesses in their own right, and both have delivered impressive profit growth under Bowmark’s ownership.

“Bringing them together creates a leading lettings-focused property services group that is greater than the sum of the parts, and is perfectly positioned to capitalise on the positive market conditions.”

Weller said: “This is an exciting next step in the Leaders story since we forged our successful partnership with Bowmark in 2010.  We are looking forward to sharing expertise with Romans to take fullest advantage of the expected growth in residential sales and lettings in the UK.”

Geographically, there is little overlap between the two firms, but Weller yesterday told EYE that where there is “there might be some co-branding”.

He said that the idea was for the firms to expand together, pooling their expertise.

With private equity backers normally looking for a profitable exit, a stock market flotation – certainly speculated in the case of Romans – could now be on the cards, given that the scale of the merged business would make it too expensive for a trade sale.