About the Group

Our Background

Countrywide plc is widely acknowledged as the leading provider of all services relating to residential property in the UK – including Estate Agency, Mortgage and related Financial Services, Lettings, Conveyancing and Surveying.

The group was formed in 1986 when the first two UK Stock Exchange listed estate agency groups , Bairstow Eves and Mann & Co., were acquired by Hambros Plc and merged to form Hambro Countrywide PLC. In 1988 Hambro Assured was established, the first life insurance company to be wholly owned by an estate agency group, and at the time the biggest life company start-up in the UK.

Growth has been mainly through acquisitions, including the creation of the largest residential surveying and valuation business in the UK when Nationwide Estate Agents and Nationwide Surveyors were acquired from Nationwide Building Society In October 1994.

Further outlets were added to the Group’s growing network of branches, including Spencers from National & Provincial Building Society in 1995, Faron Sutaria, PKL (a leading London residential lettings business) and John D Wood in 1997 and 1998, the estate agency business of Friends Provident in 2002, Freeman Forman and the estate agency business of Bradford & Bingley in 2004. Acquisition has also encouraged development of the largest UK specialist sales unit for Land and New Homes, whereby developers’ new homes are offered by as many as 1,200 prominently located, multi-branded estate agency branches.

To further widen the distribution of our retail financial service products, it was decided in 2000 to provide independent estate agents the opportunity to take a franchise, to trade in their own area as Bairstow Eves, and offer Group retail financial products to their own clients and customers. The Group has high ambitions to add several hundred franchised offices to the network over coming years.

In 1998, the Group’s major shareholder Hambros Plc de-merged, the shares passed into a widespread range of Institutional investor’s hands and the name of the Group was changed to Countrywide Assured Group plc with our Life Assurance subsidiary renamed Countrywide Assured. In 2002 the Group signed a 15 year distribution agreement with Friends Provident to provide all ABI regulated life products to be sold through our estate agency based financial services sales force. Countrywide Assured was put into run-off and in May 2004, changed its name to Chesnara plc, was de-merged from the Group and floated on the London Stock Exchange as a separate entity.

In May 2007 Countrywide plc was acquired by the private equity finance group Apollo Management LP, thereby taking the Group out of public ownership.

A Scheme of Arrangement was implemented in May 2009 which restructured the Group's debt and equity and left it in a strong financial position. Following this restructuring, the principal investors in the Group are Oaktree Capital Management L.P, Apollo Management L.P, Polygon Global Opportunities Master Fund and Alchemy Special Opportunities Fund