Rumours mount about big merger of corporate estate agencies

Countrywide shares plummeted yesterday, falling almost 4% to 8.6p.

The downward movement comes amid unconfirmed rumours about a possible merger between two big businesses in the estate agency sector.

LSL shares fell yesterday by almost 2%, to 250p.

Connells is owned by Skipton Building Society.

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24 Comments

  1. AgentQ73

    Any chance of a bit more meat on this story ? Sources, have the corporates been approached for comment etc ?

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  2. ARC

    I can confirm that I have it on good authority from an undisclosed source of no particular standing that there is an unconfirmed rumour that today is Friday and something may or not happen.

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    1. Typhoon

      Love this reply. Brilliant. Could apply to Brexit too !

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    2. Peter

      Can you please elaborate.

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    3. Cheesybiscuits

      Best comment award

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  3. Ric

    LSL – Hey CW, how’s it goin…?

    CW – Bit ****, closed branches, not really sure how to compete on a local level.

    LSL – Yeh, us too. Is ****… Got an idea though!

    CW – Go on… we need a plan, our wage bill and office rents are killing us…

    LSL – I was thinking we join together and therefore share the burden of our wage bill and office rents…

    CW – What, like create a Super Mess, not just a Mess.

    LSL – Yeh… seems logical, if we can’t make it work, join with another company who well also can’t

    CW – YAY – So how do we make money when we join together?

    LSL – erm… not sure… have you not got someone from retail who can help

    I could go on.

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    1. Peter

      I have a friend called alison, a bit of a prat if you ask me, who I think has time!

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    2. Propertologist

      Brilliant. Hey CW What’s the point of being at an expensive address on Oxford Street, your not selling clothes, furniture or property from there are you? Did Allison forget she wasn’t selling sofas anymore? Perhaps she just loved shopping on Oxford Street or picking up a new fake handbag at lunchtime?

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  4. J1

    So which shares do we buy Ros?

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  5. smile please

    As long as I get what I put into my CW shares I do not care what they do 😉

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    1. J1

      You might not  🙁

      Or you may get double  🙂  £20 x 2 =  ?????

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  6. The Blame Game

    The other rumour is Theresa May is in charge of negotiations.
    No decision expected for at least two years.

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  7. Chatty Cathy

    Plummeted and 4% don’t really go together do they? #lazyjourno

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    1. henrymarr80

      “LSL have snapped up Countrywide”. Snapped up after long and draw out negotiations.

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  8. Robert May

    Why [once again] am I reminded of  Les Dawson’s Cissie and Ada?

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  9. GPL

     

    It’s the word “plummeted”? ….4%?? …..from circa 9pence a share to circa 8.5pence a share?

    I’m guessing a 10% drop in share price would require PIE to open the High Security Office Safe and pull out the word “imploded” as they had already blown “plummeted” on today’s story.

    I think Judd Trump imploded last night when Ronnie O’Sullivan potted that final decider black last night! There’s the real news story today!!

    As there is no Rightmove, Purplebricks or OTM stories today I’ll get on with my other job.

    As Nick Ross (Crimewatch UK?) might have said ……”Don’t have a Plummeting Friday, Do have a Great Weekend”

    Tally Ho..

     

     

     

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  10. Mark Walker 2

    Probably nothing, but I did notice the local big corporate office shipping out 2 vans of paperwork bags over 2 days this week.  Maybe just keeping up with GDPR…   Maybe…

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  11. htsnom79

    I have no love for corporates, but if in a parallel universe and I did, the regional manager htsnom ( aiming for the stars here ) would take one of his offices as a training ground and nuke it back to the stone age, no tech other than portal ( modern newspaper ad ) and reluctantly email, manual office diary, manual personal diary, property register per neg, office message book, applicant cards, staff can put their phones in a locker on arrival and collect them at days end, nostalgic?

    I think the office would smash it, there is focus, urgency and awareness, so many agents I deal with are not agents at all they just work at one.

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  12. surrey1

    What could go wrong with a company of that scale? It would be Titanic :p  

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  13. Robert May

    Is it me or is there quite a significant redaction to this story?

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    1. Property Pundit

      Yep, different from what was on at 7.30am (though not by much).

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  14. mrtickle

    If you don’t know who the parties involved are, I think I may have spotted one of them.

    Connells is mentioned in the last sentence of the article, out of the blue, despite having no other interest in the story.

    Therefore, I contest that Connells is one party in the merger.

    #sherlockholmes     #elementary     #micdrop

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  15. MTOM1

    If Skipton felt buying more agency high street offices at the moment under the current BOD at Connells they are crazy. Why would you and Skipton already have worries over the hard selling of the FS product through Connells. More likely LSL/CWD as that makes some sense but also maybe just a few branches from the LSL restructure which no one would want if they were of sound mind.

    PB call it a day and take over a High St agent ?

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  16. JEL

    News on the street is that the Prudential are looking to takeover Reeds Rains and Black Horse are tying up a few deals on a few regional companies … it’s hush hush at the moment x

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