There are few businesses on AIM with a heritage quite like Christie Group’s. Tracing its roots back to 1896, the company has spent well over a century advising the people who own and run Britain’s hotels, pubs, care homes, pharmacies, nurseries and garden centres.
Today it operates from 32 offices across the UK and Europe, and after two years of decisive reshaping, Christie Group is now leaner, more profitable and more focused than it has been in years.
The numbers from recent results are the best place to start when gauging the company’s recent success.
Revenue from continuing operations rose 19.2% to £70.6m in 2025, while operating profit almost doubled to £6.9m. Earnings per share from continuing operations jumped 87.9% to 19.37p, and the firm ended the year with net funds of £9.4m and no external borrowings, a dramatic transformation from just £1.3m of cash two years earlier.
Underscoring how efficient Christie Group has become at producing profits, the company now has a ROCE of 39%, putting it in the top 5% of all companies listed in London.
Such has been the group’s progress that shareholders were rewarded with a 57% increase in the final dividend to 2.75p, taking the full-year payout to 3.50p.
Shares currently yield around 2.6%.
But this is not an income story. Recent results demonstrate that Christie Group should be considered a growth company. And with the current historical PE Ratio at just 7x, shares offer both earnings growth and a valuation below long-term averages.
A house of complementary brands
The growth story centres on a group of complementary services delivered through two divisions, generating repeat revenue opportunities through long-term relationships.
Generating around 84% of the group’s revenue in 2025, the Professional & Financial Services division houses Christie & Co, the agency and advisory business that celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2025 with record fee income, Christie Finance, its FCA-regulated finance brokerage, Christie Insurance, and Pinders, the business appraisal specialist.
The Professional & Financial Services division recorded revenue growth of 22%.
The Stock & Inventory Systems & Services division comprises Venners, the market leader in hospitality stock audit and consultancy, which grew its team to 200 people last year.
What makes the model distinctive is how these brands interlock. An operator looking to buy a care home or nursery can have the business valued by Christie & Co or Pinders, financed through Christie Finance, and insured via Christie Insurance.
This is a genuinely full-circle service that follows clients through the entire ownership cycle, from acquisition through operation to eventual exit.
When you consider that 59% of Christie Finance’s commercial mortgage and debt advisory instructions came via Christie & Co in 2025, and 12% of all Christie & Co brokered deals involved Christie Finance, you see a true cross-referral engine at the heart of the company.
Strategy: quality of earnings
Management’s strategy has been to focus the group on its higher-margin offerings that present attractive growth opportunities.
The sale of Orridge in 2024 and Vennersys in January 2026 removed two persistently loss-making businesses, generating over £5.5m in cash to date and lifting the operating margin from 5.9% to 9.7%. The company is confident the remaining brands can deliver margins in excess of 10%.
Growth investment continues, particularly in mainland Europe, where fee income rose 37% in 2025.
Highlights included the sale of the Vienna Marriott, one of Austria’s largest hotel deals of the year, and a record 57 hotel sales by the French team.
MSCI’s 2025 Global Brokerage Rankings named Christie & Co the most active hotel property agent across the UK and the Eurozone.
These accolades underscore the prominence of the brands within the group and the importance of the teams that secure deals and generate revenue.
And this is very much a group driven by specialist teams with deep expertise in the respective fields, whether that be the specialist healthcare brokers in France and Germany that continued to win new instructions in 2025, the team operating in the UK childcare business space, or the Christie Finance mortgage team that provides mortgages for dentistry, hotels, and pharmacy.
What’s striking about Christie when you delve into the company is that it’s one that has a deep Moat, almost entirely sheltered from AI disruption. The transactions and services Christie provides are in many respects deeply personal and ones that people are unlikely to trust a computer with.
The macro backdrop: headwinds navigated, tailwinds emerging
Christie Group’s fortunes are naturally tied to the health of the M&A market in its chosen sectors, and management is candid about the forces at play.
The most helpful development in 2025 was monetary policy.
Reductions in the Bank of England base rate were well received by borrowers and buyers alike, feeding directly into Christie Finance’s performance and supporting deal appetite across the board.
The firm had originally expected further cuts in 2026, and while conflict in the Middle East has softened those expectations, lenders of commercial mortgage products have not pulled back; indeed, the company said borrower demand and lending appetite remained robust throughout the first quarter.
Geopolitical uncertainty is the caveat that runs through the Group’s commentary. Its main visible effect so far has been slightly elongated deal timelines rather than cancelled transactions; withdrawn and aborted deals are running at normal levels. That distinction matters.
The businesses Christie advises on, including care homes, nurseries, pharmacies, and hotels, are needs-based and property-backed, underpinned by demographic demand that does not move with the news cycle.
It is telling that investor and lender appetite for these sectors has stayed resilient even as broader economic sentiment has wobbled.
Sector-level currents are also working in the firm’s favour. Continued consolidation by corporate operators in the care sector generated portfolio mandates and had a positive ripple effect on the independent and regional operator markets.
In childcare, funding reform and a fragmented ownership base are driving sustained buyer interest.
The hospitality industry had a genuinely difficult year, with cost pressures squeezing operators, clients extended stocktaking cycles and new business was harder to win, yet Venners still grew revenues 5.4%, passing through fee increases to recover its own wage inflation. That resilience in a tough end-market says much about the necessity of its service.
Cost inflation is a reality for the firm itself, too. Employee benefit expenses rose 14.1% in 2025, driven partly by incentive pay linked to strong revenue performance and by inflationary and promotional increases in a competitive market for specialist talent. The operational gearing in the model meant profits still grew far faster than costs.
Where demand is strongest
Christie Group sold 1,164 businesses in 2025 worth nearly £2bn, up 45% in value on the prior year, with the average brokerage fee up 26%. Valuations surged 63% to almost 8,000 units covering £14.5bn of assets, helped by major portfolio mandates including the Marston’s and Greene King pub estates.
Christie Finance secured £292m of debt for clients, up 38%, while Christie Insurance grew its renewals book 23% and lifted client retention to 87%.
Childcare and education illustrate the specialist edge. Christie & Co’s team, widely regarded as the UK’s leading advisers in the sector- brokered the sale of Perfect Start Day nurseries to Kids Planet and just published its Day Nurseries Market Review 2026, which counts around 15,090 nurseries across a UK market still dominated by independent, owner-operated settings ripe for consolidation.
Chief Executive Dan Prickett called 2025 one of the busiest years on record for the team, driven by well-planned exit strategies and robust trading, with buyer appetite carrying firmly into 2026. Healthcare told a similar story, with Christie & Co advising Omega Healthcare Investors on the acquisition of 47 former Four Seasons care homes.
Trading and outlook
Momentum has continued into the new year. At June’s AGM the Group reported UK agency pipelines up over 14% by value and 19% by deal volume, with valuation revenues 8% ahead and Christie Finance fee income up 23%. In Europe, invoicing in France and Austria is broadly level with last year, while an active Spanish hotel market is generating new mandate income. Given extended deal times, profits will be second-half weighted, and the firm expects to sell over 1,000 businesses for a third consecutive year and to deliver a full-year performance in line with expectations.
With a strengthened balance sheet, structural demand across resilient specialist sectors, supportive lending conditions and a proven cross-selling model, Christie Group offers investors a rare combination: deep heritage and renewed earnings momentum.