Move with Us, one of the best known names in the estate agency world, has been acquired by the equity firm behind a fast growing new legal network, QualitySolicitors.
The deal is intended to create Britain’s legal giant of the high street, as smaller firms squeezed by regulation and tight margins fall by the wayside.
It has been backed by the private equity owner of QualitySolicitors, Palamon Capital Partners, which has acquired the majority interest.
Palamon’s strategy is to expand the high street QualitySolicitors business – in existence for only four years – to become the major legal provider, including being the biggest conveyancer, in the UK. It already has 100 firms in 200 locations, handling over £200m worth of legal work a year. Palamon says that smaller legal firms are under threat, providing “significant” growth opportunities for the large firms. QualitySolicitors will now operate alongside MovewithUs.
Palamon invested in the firm in 2011, a year after QualitySolicitors launched, in a deal reported to be worth £10m, and has made further investments since to support expansion.
Its purchase of Move with Us – and two other legal firms in the same deal – will give it multiple routes into the UK legal market.
Move with Us is a panel management conveyancing business, which recently became part of the Simplify Group, a conveyancing and probate business with a £60m turnover.
It is Simplify itself which has been sold. Simplify was formed only last year and invested in MovewithUs, but the exact nature of its investment is unclear,
Move with Us was founded in 1997, in Peterborough, by brothers Robin and Sean King, Richard Jeffrey, Nigel Higgins and Russell Cade. Sean King joined the company full time in 2004, as chief executive.
The firm works with a network of over 1,200 estate agents across the country and has grown its services to include part exchange, property valuation reports and estate agent marketing. It has also recently ventured into lettings, with a recently launched lettings price index.
The other two firms in Simplify are DC Law and Chorus Law.
The deal has been done for an undisclosed sum, but is likely to be over £150m, with the lion’s share of the value contributed by MovewithUs.
Palamon says all the existing management teams will stay in place to lead their businesses, with further details of how the companies will work together to be disclosed at a later stage.
Sean King of Move with Us told Eye: “We are delighted to join the new group with Palamon Capital Partners as lead investors. The Move with Us founders and management team retain a significant stake in the combined organisation going forward. We look forward to working together, to strengthen our offering to our estate agency network and conveyancing panel firms. Move with Us have a proven track record in building networks that are co-ordinated centrally and deliver locally.
“Property services remain at the core of Move with Us and our plan is to increase the volume of non-discretionary property sale instructions through a greater involvement in the legal sector. We look forward to working with Palamon Capital Partners and the rest of the Simplify Group combining the best of property and legal services.”
Interesting? All the agents who became MWU members were recruited for being 'independent'. We always resisted the pressure to introduce to their conveyancing department, preferred to deal with local conveyancing lawyers.
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Us too Clarky….. I went to their HQ and was wined and dined…… which to be fair I enjoyed that bit…. BUT when they did the "we will change your website to look more like one of our members" I nearly vomited!
Like you much prefer to support the local solicitors who have done the same with us for years.
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From the MWU site: "We work in partnership with the UK’s top performing agents…" I have questioned many times exactly WHAT criteria are adopted to define "top performing". Let's be brutally honest – it is nothing more than a chums club where you BUY potential instruction opportunities with your monthly subscriptions.
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Congrats on comment of the week, My turn next week.
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Ahhh… wardy-San – ancient Chinese proverb say "Not get **** about get Comment of Week – get **** when comment get accepted" So far, 1957 comments have fallen on stony ground/blind eyes and only 2 have struck a chord with anyone… NOT a good strike-rate, mon ami – but I'll keep on truckin'… ;o)
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MWU isn't just involved in conveyancing. Does anyone know if they have sold out lock, stock….or just their conveyancing intro service?
Also multi million £ deal!!!….more money than sense in my view.
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