Franchising company Martin & Co is relaunching itself in the trading style of The Property Franchise Group as it pursues an ambitious programme of expansion.

The change will not affect the Martin & Co businesses trading under that name on the high street, but will be used as the trading name of MartinCo plc.

Chief executive Ian Wilson said the change follows a change to a multi-brand strategy.

He said: “When we floated on the stock exchange, it seemed logical for Martin & Co to choose the name MartinCo plc.

“After acquiring Xperience, it seems less logical now in trying to attract new franchisees, particularly existing agents converting their brands.

“They might not want to think they are being taken over by Martin & Co, but they’d be happy to deal with an entity called The Property Franchise Group.

“We will be re-positioning ourselves in the next two weeks.”

Martin & Co floated on the Aim stock market in December 2013 with a value of £18m plus £4m in cash reserves.

Today’s share price puts the valuation at £37m – and, said Wilson, the £4m is still there.

The City clearly liked Martin & Co’s latest results, showing record profits and turnover, and share prices have continued to tick up.

Wilson also revealed that there is now a major push to get existing independents in the West Country to buy into one of the Martin & Co brands, CJ Hole.

He said: “CJ Hole is our strongest brand. The average franchisee turns over £550,000 in fees each year, compared with an average of £260,000 to £270,000 across the rest of the group.

“We have already opened new CJ Hole offices in Gloucester and Cirencester, and new ones are due to open in Bath, Gloucester and hopefully Taunton.

“We think rebranding could be a very attractive proposition to independents who are perhaps earning much less in fees and who want to go up the leader board.”

Agents who convert will obviously have to pay the franchise fee – £18,500 – but are being offered the sweetener of a cashback.

“We will give them two years’ worth of royalty fees in order to incentivise them,” said Wilson.

‘Royalty’ fees are currently 9% of turnover.

In addition, says Wilson, new franchisees would benefit from powerful marketing, IT including software provider Reapit, and also a deal with Rightmove.

Wilson said the firm has a good deal with Rightmove, as its fourth biggest customer.

If the CJ Hole expansion push is successful, Wilson is considering copying it with other brands – for example Parkers.

He believes that in the next 12 months, ten existing agents could rebrand to CJ Hole; he also envisages ten re-sales of existing franchise businesses, plus ten cold starts, adding to the existing network of 284.

He adds that he would be disappointed not to acquire at least one other property franchise, naming two that have caught his eye.

Wilson is now taking aim at his next targets – to become a £100m company, with 500 offices in the next three years.