Winkworth CEO Dominic Agace (main picture) has sunk a further £100k into the business as his family strengthens its holding.

The Agace family has a controlling interest in Winkworth, owning more than 40% of the London-based franchise firm.

Agace purchased 102,000 shares at £1.02 per share and now has 5.73% of the total shares. Another unnamed employee took nearly 73,500 shares.

Last year, Agace’s brother and sister, Louis and Gina, increased their holdings with purchases of 900 shares each.

The siblings bought the shares for 162p, with Louis taking his total to 0.35% of the company and Gina to 0.3%.

Agace’s father Simon is the non-executive chairman, having previously led the company for many years as MD. Together they launched Winkworth onto the stock market in 2009.

Lacklustre

Winkworth revealed lacklustre final results earlier this year, well below the boom levels of 2021. Revenue was down 3% to £63.1 million (2021: £64.8 million) with sales revenues 54% of total revenues (2021: 60%).

The company did, however, deliver a clean balance sheet, with a year-end cash balance of £5.25m, slightly up from £5.02m in 2021, and no debt.

New offices

The company opened two new offices in 2022, down from six in 2021, and declared ordinary dividends of 11.0p per share, up from 9.3p the previous year, excluding special dividends.

Agace said that after an exceptionally strong performance in sales in 2021, the company continued to make good progress across the business in 2022, especially in lettings and management.

Traditionally concentrated in London as an upmarket agent, Winkworth does though have offices in other parts of the country such as Norfolk, Devon and Dorset.