Two of the Thames Valley's best-known commercial property agents Haslams Surveyors and Sharps Commercial are to merge from 1 March, CoStar News can reveal.
The Reading-based companies said the strategic merger would enable them to consolidate market share, extend resources and widen market intelligence.
Trading as Haslams Surveyors, the company will focus on the sale, letting and development of commercial property across Berkshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire.
Neil Seager, managing partner at Haslams Surveyors, said: “We have long recognised a synergy of vision and quality with Sharps Commercial. In joining forces, we can better ensure all our clients gain the advantage of our personal, focused and forward thinking approach across an even wider spectrum of property services.”
Haslams Surveyors and Sharps Commercial are among southern England’s largest independent commercial property agents and chartered surveyors, consistently ranked in the CoStar Awards' top performing firms.
Alec White, director, Sharps Commercial, who becomes Haslams Surveyors’ equity partner, said: “With the combined breadth of knowledge and experience that this merger presents, our two firms are in an unrivalled position to best serve the needs of occupiers, landlords, investors and developers in their commercial property acquisitions and disposal projects across the Thames Valley. With unparalleled access to occupier requirements throughout the region, we will be ideally placed to monitor rental and investment values in key Thames Valley centres and the wider south-east, matching clients’ properties to market demand.”
Following the merger, Haslams Surveyors will work on a commercial property portfolio spread throughout the Thames Valley across Berkshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire with offices, industrial and commercial properties in areas of Reading, Bracknell, Basingstoke, Maidenhead, Slough, High Wycombe, Wokingham and Newbury.
A strengthened range of property consultancy services will include leasing advice, property valuations, rent reviews, lease renewals, building surveys, development opportunities and land sales.
The 15-strong Haslams is one of the oldest agency practices in the South East. It was born in 1838, when two Reading farmers, brothers James and Charles Haslam, teamed up to provide advice to their peers on the valuation of agricultural land in Reading and the surrounding areas that had become subject to compulsory purchase by the Great Western Railway.
The following year, the pair set up offices in Broad Street, now part of the site occupied by John Lewis.
In 1986 the firm was renamed Haslams Chartered Surveyors and in 2007 it moved to its current modern headquarters at County House, Friar Street.
Based in the The Blade in Reading town centre, Sharps has built a reputation for a particular focus on industrial.