LSL Property Services has made Adam Castleton CEO designate, taking over from David Stewart.
Castleton has been with LSL Property Services since 2015 as its CFO, with the firm saying it was “confident” in his “deep knowledge” of its business along with his “breadth of experience in leadership roles”.
He was previously group CFO for French Connection for around two years, and prior to that, he spent six years at O2 UK, most recently as the CFO for its UK business division.
Before that, Castleton was international finance director at eBay for around two years, and previously spent 11 years as the finance director for EMEA for Walt Disney.
He will take on the CEO designate role on 1 May, following a “transition and handover period” with David Stewart, who is retiring from his executive role and the LSL Property Services board.
Steward will remain with LSL Property Services as a non-executive director, focusing on the companies in its financial services network businesses, specifically Primis Mortgage Network, and will be nominated director for Pivotal Growth joint venture companies.
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Adrian Collins, non-executive chair of LSL Property Services, said: “We are immensely grateful to David, who during his tenure as CEO led the transformation of LSL to a higher-margin, less-capital-intensive business that will perform more consistently through market cycles. Under his leadership, we have simplified and restructured our financial services and estate agency businesses. Both are now focused on business-to-business services with a significantly lower cost base and the potential for higher free cash flow generation.
“The board is very confident in Adam as the right person to lead LSL forwards, due to his detailed knowledge of our business, his breadth and depth of experience in corporate leadership and his close engagement with our investor community.
“Today, LSL is a streamlined, agile group comprising three strong businesses, each with attractive organic growth opportunities, and each overseen by an experienced non-executive chair. Our focus now is on maximising the performance of our businesses to deliver value to shareholders.”
The company confirmed that non-executive director Michael Stoop will become chair of its estate agency division and Darrell Evans, also non-executive director, will chair the surveying and valuation division.
It added that a search was currently underway to fill the CFO role previously held by Castleton.
LSL Property Services’ initial trading update shows ‘resilient’ performance
LSL Property Services said trading in the second half of the year was “resilient and much stronger than 2023”.
The company said group revenues for 2024 were expected to come to £173m, which is 20% up on 2023 figures.
The firm added that group underlying profits were “slightly ahead” of the board’s expectations and all three of its divisions reported an uptick in underlying operating profit.
Within its financial services network business, profit rose and the share of the purchase and remortgage market is expected to rise from 10.7% in 2023 to 11.6% in 2024.
LSL Property Services added that the performance of its surveying and valuation business “increased materially” from 2023, which it attributed to “normalising market conditions and contract extensions”.
The company said the first full year of its estate agency franchising division operating as a franchised branch network delivered a “material increase in profits, with operating margin at a record high of 28%”. This is an increase from 21% in 2023.
LSL Property Services said: “Looking ahead, we remain confident about the group’s prospects. Whilst current economic sentiment, higher interest rates, and the increase in employer National Insurance (NI) costs constitute headwinds, we entered the year with stronger pipelines than in 2024 and January trading is in line with expectations.
“We will continue to invest further in each of our businesses to take advantage of the growth opportunities identified, and at this early stage of the year, we expect to deliver an increase in profit for 2025 compared to 2024 in line with expectations, as our markets continue to normalise. A further update on current trading and outlook will be shared with the release of our preliminary results.”
