Lettings chain Belvoir says that one of its two main focuses this year will be acquiring other agents.

Its other focus will be on sales, with a pilot currently being run by eight of its franchisees due to end in September when a decision will be taken as to whether to roll out sales nationwide.

Mike Goddard, founder of Belvoir, spoke to Eye after the company delivered a set of strong results to shareholders, showing profits up by 16%.

Goddard said the business had raised £5.35m last year in an over-subscribed equity funding offer, and this money would be spent on acquisitions.

Asked how far the money would go, in view of some of the high valuations we have seen some agents give their own businesses recently, Goddard said he was confident of being able to make a good number of “high quality” acquisitions.

He said: “We look for small independents which typically cost us around £200,000 to £400,000 to buy. Often they will have only one office, and the price we pay is roughly turnover.

“We do have several acquisitions in the pipeline, and generally it is owners of excellent businesses looking to retire or exit.”

Goddard and new chief executive Carl Chadwick also announced a “refresh” of the Belvoir brand. This will drop “letting specialists” from its title and use “Be” as its sub-brand.

Chadwick has taken over at the helm from Dorian Gonsalves, who has stepped aside to become director of franchising.

Chadwick said the chief executive role would play to his own strengths: “I have spent 25 years in corporate finance, drawing up business plans. At Belvoir, I have stayed on to drive things forward – now, my focus is to drive things forward 161 times over.

“The more successful we can make all of our franchisees, the more successful we will be in recruiting more.”

Belvoir now has 151 franchisees operating a total of 160 outlets. It also ended last year with six corporately owned offices, now thought to be nine.

In its results for last year, announced to the AIM stock market, it made revenues of £5.8m, up 44% from 2012, and pre-tax profits of £1.6m.

Goddard and Chadwick said that the outlook for the private rented sector was excellent, with initiatives such as Help to Buy having had “negligible impact” on tenancy demand, and government forecasts for the sector to grow another 33% over the next eight years.