Fast-growing private rented sector company Lomond Capital has secured a significant foothold in Birmingham with the acquisition of John Shepherd Lettings for an undisclosed sum.

John Shepherd Lettings has 1,050 properties under management.

The deal means that Lomond takes on both the John Shepherd Lettings and Marwood Homes Estate Agents brands, with four branches in the city.

It retains Richard Crathorne and Gary Black, who are staying on as shareholders and joint chief executives to run the Birmingham operation.

The strategic expansion into the Birmingham market is the latest stage in Scottish-based Lomond’s plans to expand southwards by a rapid series of acquisitions.

Lomond is still doing deals in Scotland, where its Aberdeen-based Stonehouse team has expanded into St Andrews by buying the rental portfolio of Pagan Osborne.

Lomond is now responsible for managing a residential property portfolio of 8,700 properties worth £1.8bn across four UK cities – Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Manchester and Birmingham.

Altogether, Lomond has now done 22 deals in four years. It will be doing further deals in Birmingham and has announced that its next target city is Leeds.

It will be expanding into the south-east of England next year.

Lomond recently announced a funding injection from private equity firm MML Capital to accelerate its expansion.

Stuart Pender, chief executive of Lomond Capital, said: “Birmingham has a very attractive property market and has been a key target for Lomond Capital for some time.

“We have been looking for a high-quality ambitious firm with a strong brand to act as the ‘hub’ of our growth strategy in Birmingham and have found it in John Shepherd Lettings.

“We look forward to working in partnership with Richard and Gary to strengthen their current market-leading position further in Birmingham as we have done in Manchester with Thornley Groves, in Edinburgh with Braemore and in Aberdeen and now St Andrews with Stonehouse.

“We already have 50 properties within our own investment portfolio in Birmingham and we see this as major growth opportunity for the private rental sector with good returns for investors.”

Crathorne said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to grow our business across Birmingham.

“It will enable us to embark on a period of expansion through acquiring other businesses and will allow us to offer other related added-value services to our existing customers such as insurance, mortgages and property investment management via the wider Lomond Group.”