Belvoir Group PLC (LON:BLV) shares rose on Thursday as the property franchise said it has entered a strategic alliance with the Nottingham Building Society (NBS) which will extend its estate agency and lettings services to new locations.
Under the agreement, Belvoir said the vast majority of NBS’s estate agency and lettings activity will transfer over to the company and NBS will cease trading as its own estate agent operation for new business by the end of August.
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Belvoir franchisees will then be able to offer NBS members estate agency services either from existing building society branches or Belvoir’s own offices in the UK.
In the first instance, this opportunity will be extended to a number of franchisees to increase their footprint by taking up a presence in up to eleven NBS branches based in Nottingham, Leicester and Cambridge which will be co-branded.
"This strategic alliance represents a very exciting and mutually beneficial opportunity for both the Belvoir Group and [NBS], and is expected to pave the way for further joint initiatives in the future”, Belvoir chief executive Dorian Gonsalves said in a statement.
"I am confident that this innovative alliance will prove to be a great success, as Belvoir and The Nottingham already share many core principles, including a determination to ensure that the customer remains very much at the heart of all aspects of the business", he added.
The company’s shares jumped 5% to 124.4p in mid-morning trading.