Housebuilder with large Midlands presence snaps up rival
CALA Group has acquired independent luxury house builder Banner Homes for an undisclosed sum.
CALA focuses on building up-market, family homes within affluent locations in the south of England, the Midlands and Scotland. Headquartered in Scotland, its local base is in Henley-in-Arden.
Buckinghamshire-based Banner Homes currently operates from 21 sites across three regional operational centres, including one in Redditch.
Banner sold 235 homes during the 12 months to May 2013 at a private average selling price of £511,000, resulting in revenues of £111m and operating profit of £16.4m at a gross margin of 24%.
Its land bank has almost 1,100 units whereas CALA’s own land bank consists of 10,770 plots with a Gross Development Value of £3.6bn, including 6,200 consented and 2,700 allocated plots.
In a trading update issued in February, CALA announced plans to double the size of its business organically by 2017.
The combined CALA and Banner business will directly employ more than 600 people and have a turnover of more than £500m in its first full year with net assets of £200m.
The deal was facilitated with additional equity from Patron Capital, Legal & General and Electra and an increased debt facility through new banking arrangements led by Bank of Scotland with Santander.
Alan Brown, group chief executive of CALA, said: “Banner has a deserved reputation as one of the finest luxury house builders in the UK and combining the two businesses will put us in the top 10 of UK home builders with significant growth potential.
“Both businesses build high quality homes, place a strong emphasis on customer service and have very similar cultures and I am tremendously excited about bringing together the best of both CALA and Banner in order to drive the enlarged group forward.”
