To balance the ever increasing number of lost developments as residents rid themselves of Firstport, not surprisingly Firstport are seeking new developments to manage. Due to their fully deserved appalling reputation, they are struggling to get new "genuine" customers ie contracts awarded by the actual leaseholders. Instead they are relying on freeholder appointments. This was the case at a large development in Wembley. Industry sources expressed surprise at how low the bid for the contract to manage was? They called it " Lowballling" a term used when a company underbids any sensible quote just to get a contract to manage. This suits the developer as it makes it appear the service charges are less than they really are, thus helping sales. And of course in a few short years service charge demands increase greatly, so Firstport get their initial losses back and much more beside!
Neither are Firstport adverse to agreeing to take over the management of a development before it is properly completed. This removes a cost that should be down to the developer and transfers it to the service charge payer. Now they are trying another tactic, which is increasing market share by aquisition. They have just trumpeted the purchase of Pentland Estate Management as some kind of major boost for the prestige of Firstport. To put it into some kind of context, Pentland Estate Management were a small subsidary of Linden Homes part of Galliford Try charged with maintaing grounds surrounding homes on Linden developments.
They return a profit of around 200K and "employ' 24 staff 9many of whom are seconded from Galliford Try. The reality is that Galliford Try wanted shot of Pentland, it was using up too much of their time and resources, and Firstport wanted some "good news' as cheaply as possible.
