Cleaning company sells Irish master franchise

MYHOME International plc, a British-based company which specialises in residential cleaning services, has sold its master franchise licence for Ireland for €218,000.

The move marks the first time the OFEX-listed company has sold an international master franchise agreement. A Dublin-based holding company, Spolar Ltd run by businessmen David Lowe and Gary Matthews will run the business in Ireland.

The company will trade here as Pristine.ie, so as to avoid any conflict of interest with the well-known online property company MyHome.ie.

According to the company's chief executive Russell O'Connell: "There was no copyright or trademark issue with the name; we simply didn't want to cause any consumer confusion. The original idea was to hold off on awarding any international master licences until the end of this year, at least.

"Ireland seemed an ideal and obvious market to enter and we're of the view that the management for any country's franchise should be on the ground in that territory, so we went with it."

MyHome/Pristine has already awarded three Irish franchises. The plan is to expand that number to 43 on the island of Ireland over the next two years.