Franchise firm Belvoir is marking its 20th anniversary with an expansion that could see it with 200 offices by the end of this year.
Last week, the business announced that its income from management service fees, which its franchisees pay, increased by 14% to reach £1.76m in the first half of the year.
Founder of Belvoir, Mike Goddard, says that this growth is a combination of “a few” more franchises and existing businesses improving.
Belvoir charges its franchisees 12% of their turnover.
Despite management service fee income rising, profits virtually stayed the same, with the firm recording post-tax profits of £0.6m in the first six months of this year, down from £0.61m in the same period last year.
However, Goddard believes that the two halves of 2015 will be vastly different.
He states that the general election caused great uncertainty and affected franchisee recruitment.
He explains: “With all the talk of rent controls, a possible mansion tax and a ban on tenant fees, people who might have been interested in taking on a property franchise held back.
“Since the election, we have taken on four new franchisees and have more in the pipeline.”
He is less concerned about the changes to landlords’ taxes, revealed in the summer Budget.
He believes: “We think these will mostly affect larger landlords, whereas our typical landlord has one to three properties.”1
The biggest recent change for Belvoir was its acquisition of Newton Fallowell in July, a business of 31 offices in the Midlands.
Goddard compares the purchase, which put Belvoir into a multi-brand strategy for the first time, to Martin & Co’s acquisition of the Xperience brand.
Belvoir purchased Newton Fallowell for an initial sum of £3.9m, with a further £2.4m based on earn-out.
Goddard reveals that Belvoir is now seeking further acquisitions, anything from networks of 10-15 offices, to those over 200.
Belvoir originally specialised in lettings only, but now plans to have over a third of its branches offering estate agency services by the end of this year.
1 http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/belvoir-on-course-for-200-branches-by-end-of-year/