LSL Property Services leadership team awarded shares worth £1.25m

Agency giant LSL Property Services has awarded its core leadership team share options totalling £1.251 million, part of the PLC’s incentive scheme for senior staff.

This includes Group CEO Ian Crabb (pictured, left) who receives vested shares worth (at today’s shares price of £2.10) £406,967 and Group CFO Adam Castleton (pictured, right(), who receives vested shares worth £294,700.

Helen Buck (pictured, below left), who heads up the group’s Estate Agency business, gets shares worth £300,715.

A further two directors – Jon Round, director of its financial services business and Ronan Jennings, who heads up its surveying business e.surv – receive shares totalling £192,000.

The group can cash in the shares in two years’ time but to do so have been given targets that could prove difficult to achieve given current market conditions.

Basic earnings per share must rise by 7.5% a year over the next 18 months, while total shareholder return must reach the median compared to its main competitors.

Annual report

LSL’s most recent annual report for 2016 reveals that adjusted basic earnings per share were down by 18%.

The group, which includes agent brands Your Move, Reeds Rains and Marsh & Parsons, earlier this month reported group revenue up 2.4% to £307.8 million, profits before tax up by 64.6% to £65 million.

The results also reveal that LSL is more a surveying business than a sales and lettings agency. Of its £34m underlying operating profit for 2016, 59% came from its e.surv business and 41% from estate agency.