HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Breedon Group plc (formerly Ennstone plc) is an AIM-listed British
construction materials This is a list of building materials. Many types of building materials are used in the construction industry to create buildings and structures. These categories of materials and products are used by architects and construction project managers ...
company headquartered at
Breedon on the Hill Breedon on the Hill is a village and civil parish about north of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in North West Leicestershire, England. The parish adjoins the Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes ...
, Leicestershire, England. In 2016 Breedon became the UK's largest independent construction materials firm following its acquisition of
Hope Construction Materials Breedon Cement, formerly Hope Construction Materials and later Hope Cement, is a producer of cement, concrete and aggregates in the United Kingdom, founded on 7 January 2013 by entrepreneur Amit Bhatia. Before 1 April 2014, Hope Construction Mat ...
and in 2018 extended its operations into Ireland with the acquisition of Lagan Group. Breedon has nearly 3000 employees and operates from around 300 sites. The business turned over £862m in the year to December 2018, with a market capitalisation of more than £1bn. Breedon Group produces cement, construction aggregates, asphalt, ready-mixed concrete, bitumen and other construction materials. It also has a sizeable contract surfacing and highway maintenance business. The company was founded in 2008 by Peter Tom, chairman of the Leicester Tigers rugby club, and Simon Vivian. The current chairman is Amit Bhatia, son-in-law of
Lakshmi Mittal Lakshmi Niwas Mittal (; born 15 June 1950) is an Indian steel magnate, based in the United Kingdom. He is the Executive Chairman of ArcelorMittal, the world's second largest steelmaking company, as well as Chairman of stainless steel manufacture ...
, the billionaire steel magnate who became a Breedon shareholder following the Hope acquisition.


History

Breedon's HQ is located in the village and parish of
Breedon on the Hill Breedon on the Hill is a village and civil parish about north of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in North West Leicestershire, England. The parish adjoins the Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes ...
, where stone has been quarried since the late 1800s. In 2000, Breedon and its Breedon Hill and Cloud Hill quarries were acquired by Ennstone, a Midlands-based aggregates group. The Ennstone businesses were acquired by Breedon Aggregates Limited in 2010. These acquisitions took place under Breedon's former executive chairman, Peter Tom, and then CEO Simon Vivian, who stepped down in 2015. Their strategy was to grow the company via the acquisition of small, often family-owned operations, in an industry generally regarded as having high barriers to entry. In 2016 the company was renamed Breedon Group after completing its £336m acquisition of Hope Construction Materials, its largest purchase to date. In January 2020, Breedon agreed a £178m deal with
Cemex CEMEX S.A.B. de C.V., known as Cemex, is a Mexican multinational building materials company headquartered in San Pedro, near Monterrey, Mexico. It manufactures and distributes cement, ready-mix concrete and aggregates in more than 50 countries ...
to take over 49 ready-mix plants, 28 aggregate quarries, four depots, one cement terminal, 14 asphalt plants and four concrete products operations. However, the deal was suspended pending a regulatory investigation ordered by the UK's
Competition and Markets Authority The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is the competition regulator in United Kingdom. It is a non-ministerial government department in the United Kingdom, responsible for strengthening business competition and preventing and reducing anti-com ...
.


Operations

Breedon Group operates as five autonomous businesses: Breedon Southern, Breedon Northern, Whitemountain (NI), Lagan (RoI) and Breedon Cement. Breedon Southern, Breedon Northern, Whitemountain and Lagan are
vertically integrated In microeconomics, management and international political economy, vertical integration is a term that describes the arrangement in which the supply chain of a company is integrated and owned by that company. Usually each member of the supply ...
aggregates businesses, operating
quarries A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envir ...
, ready-mixed concrete and
asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term ...
plants, contract surfacing & highway maintenance operations. Breedon Cement produces cement at two plants at Hope in Derbyshire and Kinnegad in the Republic of Ireland, and also imports/exports cementitious materials through three UK terminals. The firm has the reported capacity to produce around 2 million tonnes of cement each year. Breedon Cement operates four rail-linked depots, including a major facility in Dagenham, Essex, which produces bagged cement. The group is reported to hold a total of approximately 900 million tonnes of natural mineral reserves and resources. Breedon Group owns a 37.5% stake in BEAR Scotland, which maintains roads on behalf of
Transport Scotland Transport Scotland ( gd, Còmhdhail Alba) is the national transport agency of Scotland. It was established by the Transport (Scotland) Act 2005, and began operating on 1 January 2006 as an Executive Agency of the Scottish Government. Organisa ...
, and a majority stake in Alba Traffic Management, an Inverness-based firm that provides traffic management services for highway works, events and utilities. Through Mobile Concrete Solutions (MCS), Breedon also operates an on-site concrete batching service, run as a joint venture with construction services company TSL.


Products

Breedon produces a variety of grades of bulk and packed cement, in addition to crushed rock, sand, gravel, agricultural lime and a range of specialist ready-mixed concretes and asphalts. One of its best-known products is Golden Amber Gravel, used for pathways and driveways; it is reportedly the only gravel with a Royal Warrant. Golden Amber is used at Chatsworth House, The National War Memorial Arboretum and the
Sandringham Estate Sandringham House is a country house in the parish of Sandringham, Norfolk, England. It is one of the royal residences of Charles III, whose grandfather, George VI, and great-grandfather, George V, both died there. The house stands in a estate ...
. Other products include speedway shale, which is a mix of crushed
limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
and
clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
laid down to form the competitive surface at motorcycle speedway tracks. Breedon shale is used in international speedway tracks such as
Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...
, Gothenburg and
Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
. Breedon developed its shale product alongside former speedway World Champion Ole Olsen and his son Torben.


Recent acquisitions

In February 2016 the UK Government's
Competition and Markets Authority The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is the competition regulator in United Kingdom. It is a non-ministerial government department in the United Kingdom, responsible for strengthening business competition and preventing and reducing anti-com ...
(CMA) announced it would investigate the proposed acquisition of Hope Construction Materials by Breedon, citing a possible lessening of competition in the building materials industry. The subsequent investigation held that the acquisition would not unduly reduce competition for the production and supply of aggregates, but that there should be further investigation into the supply of ready-mixed concrete. In response to the CMA, Breedon offered to sell 14 concrete plants from a list of 27 sites that the CMA believed would have reduced competition. The CMA accepted Breedon's list of divestments and permitted the acquisition. Plants divested included sites at Cloddach, Moray and Inverness. The £336m cash-and-shares acquisition of Hope closed in August 2016. In November 2016 Breedon acquired the Sherburn Minerals Group for a total consideration of up to £15.7 million. Sherburn is a leading independent heavyside building materials business headquartered in County Durham, employing approximately 110 people. It operates four quarries and five ready-mixed concrete plants in County Durham, Northumberland, North Yorkshire and Cumbria. It also distributes cementitious products from two import terminals at Blyth near Newcastle and Dundee in eastern Scotland. In May 2017 the group acquired Pro Mini Mix, a specialist concrete ‘mini mix’ supplier based at Oldbury and operating throughout the Midlands. This was followed in August 2017 by the acquisition of Humberside Aggregates, an independent sand & gravel quarry and aggregates merchanting business based at North Cave near Hull in East Yorkshire, for a total consideration of £9.0 million. Humberside's clients include ready-mixed concrete and mortar producers, various Government agencies, local authorities, and local and national building and civil engineering contractors. In December 2017 Breedon announced its planned acquisition from Tarmac of four quarries and an asphalt plant for £16.5 million, to be satisfied by the transfer to Tarmac of 27 of its readymix plants and payment of £4.9m in cash. This transaction is expected to be completed at the end of June 2018. In February 2018, Breedon was reported to be in talks to acquire a majority stake in the Lagan Group, a construction business covering quarrying, cement, asphalt and contracting. In April 2018, it was announced that Lagan Group had been sold to Breedon for £455m. In June 2018 the company acquired Blinkbonny Quarry in the Scottish Borders, adding nearly 3 million tonnes of hard rock to its reserves. In October 2019 it was announced that the company had purchased Roadway Surfacing & Civil Engineering Limited for up to £13.5 million, establishing it as a fully integrated business in North Wales


Financial performance

For the full financial year to December 2018, Breedon generated revenues of £862.7m, underlying EBIT of £103.5m and an underlying EBIT margin of 12%. Breedon's stated strategy is to continue growing organically and through the acquisition of businesses in the UK heavyside construction materials market.


References

{{Authority control Companies listed on the Alternative Investment Market Companies based in Leicester Wholesalers of the United Kingdom Building materials companies of the United Kingdom Quarrying Construction industry of the United Kingdom Construction and civil engineering companies of the United Kingdom 2008 establishments in England British companies established in 2008 Construction and civil engineering companies established in 2008