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FirstPort, formerly known as Peverel Limited, is a property management company owned by Knight Square and is based in the United Kingdom. It manages approximately 170,000 properties in the United Kingdom, with 160,000 in England and Wales and 10,000 in Scotland. It is the UK's biggest property manager.

History

FirstPort was originally founded as Launchcoin Limited in 2002. Vincent Tchenguiz brought the company in 2007, and it was renamed Peverel Property Management in September 2009. In March 2011, the company announced it was going into administration after Merrill Lynch required it to pay back substantial loans after a raid sparked by the collapse of the Icelandic Kaupthing bank. Zolfo Cooper managed the company's administration.

As a result of the company trading profitably through 2011, Chamonix Private Equity and Electra Private Equity bought the company and its subsidiaries in a £62 million deal. It announced that it was renaming its various property brands FirstPort Limited in September 2014 to bring all its brands under one roof.

Former Brands

The brands that FirstPort brought together were:

• Peverel Retirement
• Peverel Scotland
• Peverel Property Management
• OM Property Management,
• Consort Property Management
• Stonedale Property Management
• Pembertons Property Management
• Kingsborough Insurance Services
• Insero
• Marlborough House Management

Criticisms of the Peverel Brand

Under the Peverel brand, it received substantial criticism for what residents described as excessive fees and poor service.. Tenants voiced that they did not receive the services they were paying for, and a number of residents have made tribunal claims relating to overcharging and a lack of maintenance. In addition, residents have stated that they have been overcharged on insurance. Other criticisms include tenant transfer fees of up to 2 percent when the property is transferred.

At the time, Peverel announced that it had closed down a number of offices and restructured large parts of the company to streamline the customer complaints procedure, particularly relating to Solitare, a company it purchased in 2008. In 2014, the Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) Market Study was released, which highlighted the need to improve communication with those owning a leasehold property and to improve ways of managing tribunals across the industry. FirstPort, newly rebranded, welcomed the findings.