Willmott Dixon, posted a 48% rise in half-year pretax profits in the six months to 30 June 2016 compared to the same period last year as it outlined plans to give its three business strands – contracting, residential development and support services – greater operational, financial and strategic independence to pursue their individual growth plans.
Group chief executive Rick Willmott explained: “This year has seen some important developments to support our growth ambitions. In May, we formed Willmott Residential to combine the capabilities of Prime Place, Be:here and Homes within one company. This has already opened up many new opportunities for sharing skills, identifying new land opportunities and bringing a more holistic approach to house building for our partners and customers.
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“More recently, we rebranded our support services businesses as Fortem to grow a strong new brand utilising the technical strengths and capabilities that exist in our people to create a business with greater access to a variety of markets outside its core housing sector.”
With Willmott Residential and Fortem making good operational and strategic progress, Willmott Dixon will now implement plans to strengthen both companies further by allowing each to benefit from greater independence to pursue their individual, and different, growth plans.
In 2017 this will see them move out from under the Willmott Dixon ‘umbrella’ to become ‘sister’ rather than ‘subsidiary’ businesses to Willmott Dixon, whilst remaining owned and controlled by the same shareholder family.
The three companies are:
- Willmott Dixon Holdings with two subsidiaries: Willmott Dixon Construction and Willmott Dixon Interiors;
- Willmott Residential with three subsidiaries: Prime Place, Be:here and Willmott Partnership Homes;
- Wimpole Equity Holdings with one subsidiary: Fortem.
Willmott said: “This very much recognises each company’s specialisms and it gives senior management greater freedom and flexibility to shape their businesses to pursue specific growth agendas for their markets; but with strong cultural, leadership and ownership continuity. The revised structure also supports our wish to give top management in each of our three core businesses a more direct share in their company and in the success they help create.
Willmott Dixon’s Half-year Highlights:
- Profit before tax and amortisation: £12m (2015: £8.1m)
- Turnover: £600m
- Shareholders funds: £181.9m
- Cash and liquid investments: £80.7m
- Secured and probable forward order book: £1.15bn
- 85% of budgeted workload identified and secured for 2017
“Willmott Dixon will remain a billion pound plus company in 2017 and we’ll focus on our core strength of contracting, both new build and fit-out, with 85% of budgeted workload identified and secured for 2017. At Construction our growing geographic reach was again recently underlined by the recent opening of the Farnborough office to complement the existing five local company offices together with their satellite locations.
“At Interiors we continue to grow in scale and scope with an excellent forward order book, some important contract commissions in the pipeline and some notable successes; the recent completion of the famous Design Museum in London being a prime example.
Turning to Willmott Residential, he said this now has a considerable pipeline of 7,500 homes in planning or in development through both Prime Place (private homes for sale) and Be:here (private homes for rent). And Willmott Partnership Homes has a robust forward order book and the real opportunity to grow further by embracing an innovative development orientated operating model aimed at working in partnership with local authorities and housing associations to maximise economic value and social benefit from publicly owned land
He said Fortem was also now poised for an exciting phase of expansion: “It already provides repairs and maintenance services to local authorities and housing associations across the country, with its team of over 500 directly employed engineers undertaking over 400,000 repairs each year. This will grow as it seeks to become a leader in property maintenance and energy improvement services across all sectors, including opportunities in hotels and education as well as housing.”
