Exclusive: London chain Dexters snaps up high-profile independent company

Estate Agent Today can reveal that one of London’s best known agency chains has acquired one of the capital’s leading independent businesses.

Yesterday evening Dexters released this statement to EAT: “Dexters confirms the acquisition of the sales business of Benham & Reeves, the north London estate agent with offices in Hampstead, Highgate, West Hampstead and Dartmouth Park.” 

The statement continued: “It is business as usual for now, with the same strong team in place. The four offices will rebrand to Dexters in due course, joining a growing network of over 60 offices across the capital, including 28 in central London. Dexters is London's leading independent estate agent, handling in excess of 20,000 property transactions a year and currently has over 50,000 active buyers and tenants registered.”

EAT understands that key staff at the agencies were informed of the acquisition earlier this week.

In a parallel deal, Benham & Reeves Residential Lettings - the rentals business with 16 branches in London and five overseas, which operated separately to the four-branch Benham & Reeves - has now taken over the Benham & Reeves brand in its entirety and says it will soon expand into sales as well.

Dexter's chairman is Jeff Doble, a self-confessed cricket obsessive who named the company after the former England cricketer.

The company began as a single branch in Twickenham back in 1993 and is now a chain forecasting 11 per cent turnover growth to £75.5m this year. 

Meanwhile the reuniting of the Benham & Reeves Residential Lettings and Benham & Reeves brand brings back together the name which separated into two parts acrimoniously - and with a high-profile court case - some years ago. 

The BRLets business not only has offices across London but also in China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore. BRLets - now owning the full Benham & Reeves brand - will not only continue as one of London's best known and most successful lettings operations, but it has told EAT it will in future be adding sales to its operations too. 

Following the split between Benham & Reeves and BRLets, and while Benham & Reeves handled sales, BRLets was effectively precluded from expanding into sales itself: that restriction has now gone.

Anita Mehra, managing director of Benham & Reeves Residential Lettings, told EAT: “I am pleased to have acquired the rights to use the Benham & Reeves name for sales alongside our existing lettings business that has shared the name for the last 60 years. This unification of the brand under one roof has obvious advantages and will create new opportunities as we enter our next phase of growth.”