Global estate agency giant buys David Lee and launches in the UK

International estate agency giant Iad has acquired self-employed agency platform David Lee estate agents for an undisclosed sum and is using the business to spearhead its launch into Britain.

The new proposition covers sales, lettings and property management and the deal gives Iad immediate ‘feet on the ground’.

David Lee was founded by Lee O’Brien and David Kirby in 2004 and the acquisition will see it re-brand to Iad with Lee O’Brien taking the position of Managing Director of the expanding UK business.

21 AGENTS

David Kirby will act as ‘Head of Constellation’ and lead the existing team of 21 agents as the first Iad agents to list and sell homes in Britain.

The deal will also see ‘super agent’ Nicholas Le Ny-Clarke move from his adopted France back to the UK to assist the senior team in their growth.

Le Ny-Clarke becomes Iad’s first ‘sponsor’, a term used to describe an agent that assists growth through encouraging and mentoring new agent recruits.

Jason Bull, former Chief Operating Officer at Easyproperty, has joined Iad as Head of Coaching and Training and will head the Online University programme, to support agents to grow.

Iad has annual revenues of over £500m and 20,000 partner agents and is already successful in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Portugal and Mexico.

The model offers partner agents a commission split of up to 87.8%.

Agents can also earn significant sums from encouraging other agents to join Iad by way of ‘revenue share’.

CONSTELLATIONS

Existing Iad agents across the globe have already grown down-line ‘constellations’ of 500 plus agents by way of revenue share.

Clement Delpirou (main picture) is the President of Iad globally and says: “The United Kingdom is a key country for our expansion as the world’s fourth largest market in value terms and one that we recognise as one of Europe’s most valuable.

Our brand of estate agency provides the ultimate support and financial opportunity.”

“Our brand of estate agency provides the ultimate support and financial opportunity to our partner agents backed by one of the fastest growing companies in the property sector.

“Our ambitions are fuelled with annual revenues of over half a billion pounds which will provide substantive reassurance to potential agents thinking of making a move to being self-employed or that wish to move from their current self-employed platform.”

Delpirou wants Iad to become the dominant estate agency across Britain.

He adds: “We’ll do this simply by being the most attractive business to work with for good agents, not just on commission split and revenue share but on genuine support and with our unique revenue share approach also.”

OPPORTUNITY

Lee O’Brien, Iad UK Managing Director, says: “There is a significant opportunity for a well-funded and credible player to lead the expansion of the self-employed model in this country and as we’ve seen in the US, Europe and Australia – but not here yet.

“David Kirby and I have laid decent foundations with our personal, culture rich approach to agent recruitment and support over the past few years and we were looking for the ‘rocket fuel’ to take this to the highest level.

“Our decision to do a deal with Iad was a no-brainer in that respect and we are incredibly excited to be leading the iad expansion in the UK now.”

Iad UK will operate from David Lee’s offices at Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire.