Estate Agents: One of the best known and longest established names in the property business is to wind down its commercial and residential operations this month.

James Adam & Sons, Auctioneers, Valuers and Estate Agents - whose property-related business has been dwindling over the last two decades - has decided to concentrate on its core business of fine art and antique sales from its offices on St Stephen's Green.

The commercial and residential aspects of its business probably peeked during the 1960s, 1970s and the early 1980s when the agency had around 12 people working in these areas. Its name was often to the fore when large period homes came on the market.

At one stage it was amongst the top six agencies in the city and many big names in the industry either learnt their trade or passed through the company.

These included James Gill and Alan Bradley, a former director of Jones Lang LaSalle who spent four years with James Adam & Sons.

In the last decade, the middle range agency was gradually squeezed out of the residential and commercial property markets by the emergence of today's big players, like Sherry FitzGerald, Lisney and Gunnes.

James O'Halloran, managing director of James Adam, says the company's property interests gradually dwindled during the 1990s and eventually centred around David Freeman, who is now leaving the company to join Ganly Walters.

James Adam & Sons was founded in 1887 by a Scottish immigrant, James Adam, who died in 1932. His grandson, also James Adam, joined the company in 1925 and ran the business in partnership with the late Capt Moloney and James Gill for many years until his retirement in 1985. Aged 93, James Adam died on January 7th, 2003.