Public | |
Traded as | : |
Industry | Infrastructure |
Founded | 1848 |
Headquarters | London, UK |
Key people
|
Phil Nolan (Chairman) Olivier Brousse, (CEO) |
Revenue | £133.1 million (2015) |
£112.2 million (2015) | |
£101.1 million (2015) | |
Website | www.laing.com |
John Laing Group plc (pronounced "Lang") is a British developer and operator of privately financed, public sector infrastructure projects such as roads, railways, hospitals and schools through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) and Private Finance Initiative (PFI) arrangements. It is listed on the and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
The business can trace its roots back to 1848 when James Laing (born in 1816), along with his wife Ann Graham, and some employees whom they had hired, built a house on a plot of land that they had bought for £30 in Cumberland. The £150 proceeds from the first house financed the building of the next two houses on the same plot of land, one of which (Caldew House in Sebergham) was kept by the Laing family to live in. The family and the business later moved near Carlisle.
When James Laing died in 1882, his son, John Laing (born in 1842) took over the running of the company. John began to undertake larger contracts but confined the business to the Carlisle area.
John's son, John William Laing, (born in 1879) was working for the business before he was 20 years old, and so it became John Laing and Son. By 1910, John William Laing was running the business. More employees were recruited and larger projects were undertaken, including factory construction.
In 1920 the firm became a limited company, and two years later moved its headquarters from Carlisle to a 13 acres (5.3 ha) site at Mill Hill in north-west London. During the Second World War the company was one of the contractors engaged in building the Mulberry harbour units.
William Kirby Laing and John Maurice Laing, the fifth generation of the founding family, joined the company in 1950.