by Terry Cunnew
With the growing activity of the acquisitive financial institutions in the estate agency market, deals which not so long ago would have made front page headlines are now becoming so commonplace that they hardly seem to attract comment.
Famous agency names are being swallowed up by equally famous outside organisations bent on creating nationwide operations.
This week’s crop brings us the latest buys by Hogg Robinson Group, who have bought Russell Baldwin & Bright, or at least part of it, and Anscombe & Ringland for a total of £5.8m.
The estate agency and property arms of RB&B go to Hogg, who plan to have a network of 100 agency outlets by the end of the year.
At the same time, a new entity — Russell Baldwin & Bright Markets — will become the successor to the existing company, with responsibility for 10 markets and 16 offices in Wales and the West Midlands, handling over 600,000 head of livestock sales per year.
The Anscombe & Ringland deal brings Hogg representation in eight offices in central, west and north London, and increases the whole network of the operation to date up to 47 branches.
Meanwhile, Nationwide Building Society have announced the latest step in their programme of setting up an agency network.
Nationwide have bought the North-East firm of Wallshead Gray & Coates, who have 13 offices covering Tyne & Wear and Teesside.
With this acquisition, Nationwide’s network now totals 103 offices ready to swing into operation at the start of 1987 under the Building Societies Act legislation.
Meanwhile, referring to last week’s announcement that Hambro Countrywide had bought Adrian Keefe & Partners, it seems that they have undersold themselves as far as the price is concerned. The purchase price for Keefe is not the £3.35m originally stated in press announcements, but rather a maximum of £4.3m.
It has emerged that the Burling Morrison Partnership has been split up between Black Horse and Laurentian.
Black Horse have acquired the Burling element of the firm, with nine offices in Cheshire and Greater Manchester. The deal brings Black Horse’s coverage up to 284 offices in 31 counties.
The Morrison branches of the partnership, with 10 outlets in south Manchester and Cheshire, were bought by Laurentian through Jordans, the agency which they acquired at the end of September.
Laurentian are a financial services group whose main members in this country are Imperial and Trident life assurance companies.
Finally, on Thursday, the Prudential, through Pearsons, acquired the firms of Scotchbrooks, Ensors and Sir Francis Pittis & Sons — who operate in Berkshire, Dorset and the Isle of Wight respectively.
