Eddisons moves into leisure market
EDDISONS, the chartered surveyors, has unveiled ambitious growth plans including the launch of a new division and the opening of offices in Ireland.
The Leeds-headquartered business has launched a licensed, leisure and hotels department as it looks to further capitalise on what it sees as opportunities in the distressed property market – an area it has already profited from during the downturn.
Eddisons turned over £12.7m in its last financial year and is expecting that figure to top £14m this time, with managing director Nigel McDonald confident of achieving significant profits.
The company has also recruited John Hayward as head of rating. Manchester-based Mr Hayward has joined Eddisons from CVS and is tasked with taking the company’s rating offering national.
Mr McDonald said: “We’re cautious and conscious of the economic climate but we’re going to be doing quite a lot this year. We do box above our weight.”
Philip Booth, who has joined Eddisons from accountancy firm Grant Thornton, is heading the licensed, leisure and hotels team based in London and a further five director level staff are being recruited to join the team based in Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester.
“We’ve got a three year business plan for the department and the third year will see the department turning over between £1.5m and £2m and creating profits,” said Mr McDonald.
He said Eddisons, which also has offices in Manchester, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Glasgow and Huddersfield, was capitalising on properties affected by the economic crisis and its experts had close relationships with insolvency practitioners and bank staff specialising in restructuring and disposing of distressed property.
Eddisons has opened offices in Dublin and Limerick. The Ireland operation will be headed by Martin Golden and Eddisons is also looking to open offices in Galway and Cork.
Explaining the reasons for the launch in Ireland, Mr McDonald, who joined Eddisons in 1975 and led a management buyout of the business in 2008, said: “Ireland has got some banking problems and we feel our experience of the last three years over here we’ll be able to use over there.
“However, as a business we’re not just there to handle banking problems. We want to be there in 20 years time as a multi-disciplinary business,” added Mr McDonald, who sees bank lending as vital to speeding up the economic recovery.
Eddisons, which employs 202 staff, 70 of whom are based in Leeds, offers services including building and project consultancy, rating issues, valuations, commercial and residential property management, facilities management, landlord and tenant and property auctions.
The company, which will officially unveil its new logo and website on Monday after undergoing a rebrand, has also launched an estate agency division and is looking to grow its public sector work.
“We would like to get to £20m turnover,” said Mr McDonald. “We’ll then reinvest cash back into the business. We are working very hard to make the business perform.”
