Contractor Willmott Dixon has revealed plans to split into three sister businesses, separating contracting, residential development and support services
Willmott Dixon is to divide its business into three separate sister firms, it has emerged. Under the plans the contractor said it will support three strands: contracting, residential development, and support services. This division of services will offer “greater operational, financial and strategic independence to pursue their individual growth plans”.
The redeveloped business will comprise of three main companies with subsequent subsidiaries:
- Willmott Dixon Holdings:
- Willmott Dixon Construction and Willmott Dixon Interiors
- Willmott Residential:
- Prime Place, Be:here and Willmott Partnership Homes
- Wimpole Equity Holdings:
- Fortem
While the businesses will be owned by the Willmott family, the businesses hope to become “more than subsidiaries”.
Changes will help the firm grow
Group chief executive Rick Willmott said: “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 opportunities for sharing skills, identifying land opportunities and bringing a more holistic approach to house building for our partners and customers.
“More recently, we rebranded our support services businesses as Fortem to grow a strong brand using 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.”
The firm has seen a good half-year result, with pre-tax profit up from £8.1m last year to £12m this year.
Willmott said: “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 per cent 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.”
