Hunters announces flotation plans

Hunters, the sixth largest UK’s estate agency group, has announced that it is planning to float on AIM, the London Stock Exchange’s market for smaller growing companies, later in the year – with the aim of expanding the network to over 500 offices in five years’ time. Hunters will aim to raise funds privately on a pre-IPO basis by inviting investors, including both staff and partners, to buy shares. Hunters is looking to raise up to £2.5million of new equity, to enable it to accelerate further growth. Hunters is one of the major players on the national property scene having opened its first branch 22 years ago in York. The network is mainly franchised and now has 128 branches nationwide in key cities across the UK including London, Birmingham, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester, Middlesbrough and Liverpool. In 2014, Hunters opened 31 branches and increased the overall income by over 40 per cent. Hunters says that it has already invested millions in all areas of the business including staffing, training, marketing, technology, growth of the franchise network and premises to produce a first rate business with over 90% customer satisfaction rating; in comparison to the national industry average of 78%. In preparation…