Beazer
| Industry |
Construction Housebuilding |
|---|---|
| Fate | Acquired |
| Successor | Hanson plc |
| Defunct | 2001 |
| Headquarters | Bath, Somerset |
|
Key people
|
Victor Benjamin, (Chairman) Dennis Webb, (CEO) |
Beazer was a family business for six generations before expanding in the 1980s into international housing, construction and building materials group. After becoming overburdened with debt it was rescued by Hanson plc in 1991. A new Beazer Group, comprising solely the UK housebuilding business, was demerged from Hanson in 1994, and bought by Persimmon plc in 2001.
The six generations mentioned above can easily be traced with the help of the Census. George Beazer born c.1783 (refer 1841 and 1851 England census) was living in the little village of Marshfield just outside Chipping Sodbury, and the Beazers stayed there for several generations. George’s son Henry (1822) was the first to be designated a mason as was Joseph (1844) and then Jesse (1874). Jesse’s work consisted largely of repairs to the farms and properties around the village, though he did manage to finance his own house at the age of only 26, an unusual achievement for a mason in those times.
Jesse had eight children but only one son – Cyril H Beazer (1908-1983). Cyril started working for his father at the age of 13, but work was scarce and Cyril later moved to Bath to work for local firms, becoming a mason himself and then a general foreman. In partnership with a local businessman who owned a small plot of land, Cyril built two houses and thus began the building business that was to bear the name C.H.Beazer. During the 1930s Cyril employed no more than a few men and, in World War II was mainly involved in war damage repair work in Bath; until 1944 when he and his men were directed to undertake similar work in London.
The early post-war period continued to be dominated by war damage reconstruction in Bath, but the business gradually extended to new build and to the counties around Bath. Reflecting the increased size of the business, C H Beazer (Construction) was incorporated in 1956; Cyril’s eldest son, Ralph, joined as a director and the younger brother Brian became a director in 1960. In the event it was Brian Beazer who took over as managing director in 1968 and it was he who turned this small Bath company into an international construction group.
The local firm of Mortimer & Sons, of similar size to C.H. Beazer, was bought, its general construction business complementing what had become Beazer’s predominant private housebuilding. In 1971, Beazer made a leap from what had been a predominantly south-west firm by developing a commercial property site in Brussels. Within two years it had property developments in Belgium France and Germany as well as seven schemes in the U.K. Supported by those development profits, in July 1973 C.H. Beazer (Holdings) was floated on the , barely months before the onset of the first major post-war recession. Profits fell, there were property write-downs and the dividend was cut in 1976. The years that followed were ones of consolidation before the acquisitions began again at the end of the decade – only this time they were on a much larger scale.
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Wikipedia