Countrywide has bought three large independents, including two of the largest in one city, Liverpool, in the first obvious plank of its strategy to double in size in the next five years.
It has also bought John Francis, a major player in south Wales.
The trio of purchases instantly adds 39 more branch locations and over 300 new employees to the Countrywide network, the week after the UK’s largest chain issued a warning on profits because of lower than expected sales volumes.
John Francis has 21 branches covering Swansea and south Wales. The agent serves all aspects of the property market, including residential sales and lettings, commercial sales, auctions, new homes and financial services.
The business is said by Countrywide to have a market-leading reputation for its modern approach, IT innovations, high quality and professional customer service and knowledgeable and trained employees.
The acquisition of John Francis makes Countrywide a dominant property agent in Wales where it already operates its Taylors and Beresford Adams brands. Countrywide now has a network of 40 branches throughout north, south and west Wales
In Liverpool, Countrywide has snapped up property agents Sutton Kersh, and Clive Watkin. They are the second two of the three largest independents in the city.
Clive Watkin Partnership has 15 sales and lettings branches across Liverpool and the Wirral, plus a land and new homes operation. Countrywide said the acquisition offers “enhanced” brand opportunities.
Sutton Kersh has six multi-discipline branches across Liverpool, covering sales, lettings, auctions, mortgages, surveys, valuations and property management.
The two Liverpool acquisitions join Countrywide’s existing Entwistle Green brand.
Sam Tyrer, managing director for retail at Countrywide, said: “We are delighted to welcome these three well established and reputable businesses into the Countrywide Group.
“We have a unique ability to grow businesses by ensuring they operate autonomously, retain their local heritage and benefit from our ongoing investment and support.
“This is an exciting period for Countrywide as the growth of our Retail business unit continues to be a major focus in our plan to double the size of Countrywide over the coming five years.”
Countrywide stressed that it is still very much on the hunt to buy more single multi-branch businesses “almost anywhere in the UK”.
Comments (13)
What happens to RM when Countrywide takes all of its properties off the website and just lists on its own one?
Will never happen. CW are founding agents of RM and pat pennies to advertise on it.
Smart move…… Countrywide dumping their toxic corporate brand….. and sliding into the Independent Arena wearing an Independent Mask!
Take note all Independents……. look at the strength of your business, being Independent is what the corporates want to fake?!
Quite a few branches for OTM to loose I assume, as Countrywide are on both Rightmove and Zoopla. be interesting to see what happens here.
I can see Countrywide dropping Zoopla and backing OTM in the not too distant future. Makes sense for them in the medium to long term.
Yep … Absolutely … The largest agent in the country that has it’s own portal, new home developer and has announced plans to launch an online agency will definitely want to list on a portal run by its competitors , bans new homes developers , other portals and online agents …… I’d love to educate you more but I’m currently teaching a pork chop how to three point turn and it’s taking longer than expected .
The market hasn’t even moved an inch on this news.
Selling ZPG would be a catastrophic mistake
I do not know these businesses but i guess they have very large lettings portfolios.
Countrywide use to be about F/S now its all about growing the lettings book. Going about it very quietly but making massive steps.
Agreed smile……Guess they’ll definitely need their Zoopla money now?
Do you think they will ditch the shares? it would give them a massive war chest for restructuring thats for sure.
Would that then mean they lose their heavily subsidised subscription rates?
I have heard rumors behind the scenes they are looking to dominate the lettings sector as can be run from a centralised location long term and lots of unexploited revenue streams. They see the sales sector as having its day and not as profitable as the past due to fee erosion and volume. as such f/s and surveys and convyeancing is a big ask to continue to sustain profitability in the long term.
I can see that John Francis list on OTM so it will be interesting to see if Countrywide continue to let them do so.
As smile says Countrywide clearly have cross selling (to their data) high on their agenda……why would they stay with Zoopla when Zoopla / U switch want to cross sell services/items to their customers? Surely Countrywide would want to cross sell to their customers? Surely they would sell their Zoopla shares before coming off as they would be worth much less if they didn’t advertise their properties there.
Should be good news for the recruitment agents in these areas!