Finance chef quits Reeds Rains parent LSL as it goes for growth

The York company thanked Mr Fielding "for his exceptional contribution" to the business over the past 15 years, particularly during the past eight years as group finance director.

The board said that he will be replaced by Steve Cooke who has held a number of senior PLC and private equity roles.

Mr Cooke is joining from Bestinvest, the Independent Financial Adviser backed by 3i, where he has been for the past two years. He joined as chief financial officer and was later appointed chief operating officer. Mr Cooke will take over as group finance director on July 1.

Mr Fielding will step down from the board on that date but will work with Mr Cooke for a handover period, including the publication of the interim results on August 4.

Mr Fielding is expected to leave the business on August 30.

Before joining Bestinvest Mr Cooke was chief financial officer of Mapeley PLC and Energis where he was part of the successful turnaround team.

Having qualified with Coopers and Lybrand, his early career was spent in retail in senior financial roles at B&Q and Homebase.

Mr Fielding said: "I feel proud to have been associated with the group during a period of rapid growth and innovative development, including the MBO and subsequent IPO."

Chief executive Simon Embley said: "I extend to Dean both my thanks for all he has done and my best wishes for the future. I am delighted to welcome Steve to LSL. He brings vast knowledge and expertise from his profession and also his commercial experience.

"I have no doubt he will make a valuable contribution to the exciting growth plans at LSL."

LSL Property Services is on the hunt for smaller rivals and has made a number of acquisitions this year. The group, which owns the Your Move and Reeds Rains estate agency brands, has said it will look at low-valued businesses in similar spheres to its current operations, to help it grow market share.

Earlier this week it announced plans to buy smaller rival Goodfellows Group for just under 1m.

LSL is buying the estate agency, land and new home and lettings

business of Goodfellows Group for 963,968 in cash.

Goodfellows has nine estate agency and lettings offices in south London and specialises in land and new homes.

The acquisition follows the purchase of Home of Choice for 1.5m earlier this month and LSL is expected to announce more bolt-on acquisitions over the coming months.

Home of Choice, which was bought from the administrators, is a specialist mortgage network provider to about 500 self-employed mortgage advisers.

Last month, LSL confounded a recent glut of bad news from the mortgage sector by reporting continued improvement in trading. The group told shareholders at its annual meeting that "activity levels remain encouraging" and a pick-up seen late last year – when it was buoyed by stronger-than-anticipated house sales – had continued in the first three months of the year.

In January, LSL sealed the acquisition of more than 200 estate agency branches from Halifax for a token 1.

LSL expects the Halifax business to generate profits in 2011. It will spend this year focusing on improving branch income.

It now has 575 branches, including 40 in Yorkshire.

LSL Property Service's core businesses are derived from acquisitions made by General Accident between 1985 and 1988, when it bought estate agency branches, some of which included surveying operations.

In November 1999, the estate agency business was rebranded Your Move and the surveying business was rebranded E.surv

The group began its independent life in July 2004, when Your Move and E.surv were bought by management, supported by Barclays Private Equity.