Estate agent restructures to safeguard future

1:40pm Sunday 7th September 2008

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A LEADING York estate agency has fundamentally restructured its business following the “biggest slowdown in the market since the Second World War”.

David Horner and Dave Broadbent, of business rescue, recovery, and restructuring specialist Begbies Traynor, have been appointed joint administrators of Ashtons (York) Limited, one of the companies behind Ashtons Estate Agents.

A resulting restructure has meant closure for three offices in South and West Yorkshire. Its North Yorkshire branches – in York, Selby and Scarborough – will continue trading as normal under the Ashtons name.

Mr Horner said: “The founders, who know this business inside out, have been able to commit further to the future of the firm they have built, and that’s a good result in this challenging housing market and economic climate.”

The credit crunch and dramatic falling off of the residential housing market in South Yorkshire has been blamed for the failure of the expansion plans, which saw the opening of offices in Doncaster, Mexborough and Wakefield in an attempt to replicate the success of York further afield.

Ashtons director Paul Docwra said: “To secure the future of the business is the most important thing, and we now have a business that is sustainable and able to grow, through a period of economic uncertainty and unprecedented period in the residential market, which has seen our two major competitors in York close three offices in the past couple of months.”

Peter Docwra, his brother and fellow director, said: “It is a real blow to have lost our South Yorkshire branches and the people we employed there, but our market share and the local property market made them simply uneconomic.

“We needed to retrench to the solid base we have in York to protect the jobs of the majority of the employees, which is why we called in the experts at Begbies Traynor. We are all more than happy with the new company.”

Begbies Traynor has successfully sold the assets and goodwill of the Mexborough and Doncaster branches.

Ashtons director Andrew Wilson said: “We’ve had to make these cuts as a result of very difficult trading circumstances.

“Our expansion programme into those branches happened at a time when no one was anticipating the biggest slowdown in the market since the Second World War.”

He said all jobs – about ten – at the three branches had been lost.

Mr Wilson said the Ashtons letting and management branch in High Petergate was unaffected by the administration proceedings.

Mr Broadbent said the core North Yorkshire business was now operated by a separate limited company, APP Ltd, owned by the existing Ashtons directors.