LDC, the private equity investor part of Lloyds Banking Group, has exited its investment in Lomond.
LDC will reinvest in Lomond alongside new investor, the asset manager ICG, as well as the founding chairman Stuart Pender and management.
The transaction looks set to support Lomond’s growth strategy of further consolidation through acquisition in its existing markets, as well as providing additional capital to drive expansion into new regions.
LDC originally backed Linley & Simpson in 2018, before merging the regional sales and lettings agency with Lomond Capital in 2020.
Since the merger, Lomond has completed 65 acquisitions, becoming one of the fastest growing estate agency networks in the UK, growing from 600 to 1,900 employees and from 22,000 properties under management to more than 50,000.
Ed Phillips, CEO at Lomond said: “We’ve had a superb journey so far with LDC. What we’ve achieved together is a testament to the hard work and passion of our people and I am delighted they will remain as a partner going forward. To have secured new investment from such a leading investor in ICG underlines the level of ambition of the team at Lomond and our new partner. We’re now looking forward to accelerating our growth in the coming years as we continue our journey as the best estate agency network in the UK.”
Pender stated: “The new investment from ICG creates significant firepower to fuel the next phase of Lomond’s growth and allows us to realise our ambitions for the business over the next three to five years. Our management team has done an excellent job over the last three years in building a market-leading platform and we have been well supported by LDC during this critical phase of our growth. We now very much look forward to working with ICG and LDC to maximise the full potential in the platform over the next few years.”
Mark Piasecki, managing director at ICG, added: “We were impressed by the growth journey of Lomond in recent years and are delighted to be its new partner alongside Ed, Stuart, LDC and the rest of the business. We see significant future value creation opportunity through further organic growth initiatives in its core regional markets, in addition to leading the consolidation drive in a highly fragmented market through what is a well-proven M&A platform. We look forward to working closely with Ed and the talented management team to fulfil Lomond’s significant potential.”
ICG was advised by DC Advisory (M&A), Deloitte (financial), LEK & CiL (commercial), and Proskauer and Paul, Weiss (legal). LDC and Lomond were advised by Clearwater and Womble Bond Dickinson.
Reflecting on the deal, Adam Walker, a well-established broker who specialises in the sale of letting agencies, commented: “We have already had a record year for business sales and just when we thought that M & A activity in the lettings sector couldn’t get any hotter, along comes a new entrant to the market.
“This is bound to speed up the pace of mergers and acquisitions still further and I expect further announcement will follow soon. At a recent conference I said that the consolidation of the lettings sector will be all over in 10 years’ time and in view of this latest announcement the timescale is now likely to be shorter still.”
