CKD Galbrait sets itself up for further growth

CKD Galbraith, Scotland’s leading rural property specialists with a sales turnover last year of £380 million, yesterday announced a major expansion of its operations through a merger with Hayes Macfarlane, an established farm and estates management business.

The merger, to take effect as of 1 July, will see Hayes Macfarlane become part of the CKD Galbraith operation, taking its network of regional offices throughout Scotland to 14, and which will now include Aberdeen and Alyth.

All staff at Hayes Macfarlane will be retained by CKD Galbraith and will continue to serve the needs of existing clients as a fully integrated part of 
the enlarged firm which, after the merger, will have 
a total of 250 members of staff and a company turnover of between £10 and £11 million.

Speaking in Edinburgh, James Galbraith, chairman of CKD Galbraith, described the merger as a “brilliant way of filling in the geography”, with Hayes MacFarlane operating largely out of Aberdeenshire and Perthshire. He added he saw the move as expansion and not consolidation and emphasised there would be no redundancies arising from the move.

Tom Stewart of Hayes Macfarlane said that, after years of the business growing steadily, it was time to take things to another level and teaming up with CKD Galbraith was just the right fit.

“As far as clients are concerned there will be a seamless transition and we look forward to providing the ever growing number of services people require to sustain their own business,” he said.

The merger comes six years after CKD Galbraith acquired chartered surveying firm Macdonald Fraser, the land agency division of United Auctions, which significantly increased the firm’s rural services.

More recently in 2011, the firm established its national farms sales centre at the Stirling Agricultural Centre.