Ann: Trading Update, page-5

This organisation is now more of a university type experience for newcomers to the industry. Those who made the company great have long since left to start their own businesses. I'm sure the training programmes are well thought out, in place and would pass any test for the quality of the information available to enable potential proficiency as a sales agent. Competition, the changes in the way businesses like this operate in today's market and regulations have blunted the ability to pump out commissions as it did in the good old days.

The wealthy personalities of the Eastern Suburbs who supplied the gravitas at the Saturday morning auctions in Paddington and the close by suburbs and through their presence created free advertising for this company then, have long since disappeared and have been replaced by ordinary family types watching their budgets. Buy a property and meet a personality at the same time is a distant memory now. The founder remains as just about the only evidence that these things actually occurred. What we have now is just another real estate business competing at the same level as most but carrying the disclosures and additional responsibilities of a public company. I'm sure the urge to privatise is felt by those who need to sign off on the accounts when they are put forward in these difficult times.

Alhambra.