Property Franchise Group confident in meeting market expectations

It said its traditional high street brands performed well, and its online brand EweMove continued to trade profitably.

The AIM-traded company said management service fees increased across the group by 15% to £4.4m, with total tenanted properties served rising 6% to around 53,000.

As at 30 June, the company had net cash of approximately £0.5m compared to net debt of £0.7m at the same period last year.

The board said that as a result, it was “confident” that trading continued to be in line with market expectations for the full financial year ending 31 December.

“We are pleased to deliver revenue growth across all five of our high street brands and also our online brand, EweMove,” said chief executive Ian Wilson.

“We remain confident that our franchise model of local business owners, allied to a central support infrastructure, can outperform both small independent estate agency businesses and the large corporate players, and have demonstrated that we can gain an increasing share of the developing online agency market.

“As such, we will continue to leverage our scale and strong financial position to capitalise on the opportunities both on the high street and online.”

The Property Franchise Group said it would announce its interim results on 12 September.