Apollo Management, the American private equity group, could be forced to pump millions of pounds of cash into Countrywide, Britain's biggest chain of estate agents, in a bid to shore up its investment in the group.

Countrywide's debt is changing hands at "seriously distressed" levels, according to specialist traders who believe the company will need to call on Apollo's support to help it through the slowdown in the British housing market.

Apollo bought Countrywide in April last year for £924m which included £305m of equity provided by Apollo. Traders said that, given the decline in share price of Countrywide's quoted rivals, Apollo's equity stake will have at least halved. The various tranches of debt were arranged by Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs.

One trader said: "Countrywide's senior debt is trading at 67p in the pound and the bonds are 51p in the pound. The big discount is because traders believe the company will need more cash from the sponsor if the housing market continues to deteriorate. The discount also shows the market believes there's a risk the sponsor won't stump up more cash."

Sources close to Apollo said they were "not worried" about their investment.

There are also concerns in the market over the performance of Foxtons, the London-based estate agent bought by BC Partners in May 2007, although people close to BC insisted this weekend that Foxtons was trading according to a plan that was drawn up last June. The takeover of Foxtons was valued at £355m, of which BC Partners paid £121m.

This weekend a spokesman for BC Partners declined to comment.



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