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Persimmon plc is a British housebuilding company, headquartered in
York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
, England. The company is named after a horse which won the 1896
Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gai ...
and St. Leger for the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII). It is listed on the
London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...
and is a constituent of the
FTSE 100 Index The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index, also called the FTSE 100 Index, FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the "Footsie" , is a share index of the 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange with (in principle) the highest market ...
.


History

Persimmon was founded by Duncan Davidson in 1972. After leaving
George Wimpey George Wimpey was a British construction firm. Formed in 1880 and based in Hammersmith, it initially operated largely as a road surfacing contractor. The business was acquired by Godfrey Mitchell in 1919, and he developed it into a constructi ...
, Davidson had formed Ryedale Homes in 1965, selling it to Comben Homes in 1972 for £600,000. Davidson restarted development again in the Yorkshire area; Persimmon began to expand regionally with the formation of an Anglian division in 1976 followed by operations in the Midlands and the south-west.Wellings, Fred: Dictionary of British Housebuilders (2006) Troubador. In 1984, Persimmon bought Tony Fawcett’s Sketchmead company; Fawcett had been a director of Ryedale and he became deputy managing director at Persimmon. The enlarged company was floated on the
London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...
in 1985, by which time the Company was building around 1,000 houses a year. Steady regional expansion took volumes up to 2,000 by 1988 with a target of 4,000 following the housing recession. Tony Fawcett had died in 1990 and in 1993 John White was appointed as chief executive with Davidson remaining as an executive chairman. In 1995, Persimmon made the first of a series of major acquisitions. Ideal Homes, once the largest housebuilder in the country and then part of Trafalgar House was bought for £176m giving the Group a much stronger presence in the south-east. This was followed by the purchase of the Scottish housing business of
John Laing plc John Laing Group plc is a British investor, 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 Initiativ ...
and Tilbury Douglas Homes. In 2001, Persimmon acquired Beazer Homes UK, for £612m, taking output to over 12,000 a year. The deal came about after Beazer and Bryant announced a 'merger of equals' to create a new house builder called Domus. However,
Taylor Woodrow Taylor Woodrow was one of the largest housebuilding and general construction companies in Britain. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until its merger with rival George Wimpey to create Ta ...
stepped in with a £556 million bid for Bryant, and Persimmon bought Beazer, a company named after its founder Brian Beazer, and originally started in Bath. The acquisition of Beazer brought with it Charles Church, an upmarket housing business founded by Charles and Susanna Church in 1965. In January 2006, Persimmon acquired Westbury, another listed UK house builder, for a total consideration of £643 million.


Operations

It builds homes under the Persimmon Homes, Charles Church and Westbury Partnerships brands.


Criticism


Poor build quality

Persimmon has regularly been criticised for the poor build quality of some of its homes. Examples include wiring up sockets dangerously giving the potential to shock, installing wobbly bannisters, laying turf on builder's rubble rather than on newly laid soil and radiators being not properly fixed to the wall. In 2008, a boy was killed by a falling mantelpiece. Persimmon, which sub-contracted company KD Childs to fit the fireplaces, had not checked the standards and had never received documents about how fireplaces were fitted. A mantelpiece had previously fallen at another Persimmon Home but was treated as a "one-off" incident. In 2018, a couple created signs warning potential neighbours against buying homes in their
Newquay Newquay ( ; kw, Tewynblustri) is a town on the north coast in Cornwall, in the south west of England. It is a civil parish, seaside resort, regional centre for aerospace industries, spaceport and a fishing port on the North Atlantic coast of ...
estate, citing multiple faults which Persimmon had, as of 19 July 2018, failed to correct, including patio doors which did not close properly, protruding nails, and damp and mould resulting from poor plumbing. Persimmon's poor new build quality was the subject of a
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
'' Dispatches'' documentary broadcast on 15 July 2019. In August 2019, Persimmon appointed an independent team of construction quality inspectors to ensure its homes are built to required standards. In April 2019, Persimmon launched an independent review of customer care and quality of work following criticism. Persimmon had been ranked the lowest major housebuilder in the
Home Builders Federation The Home Builders Federation (HBF) is a trade association representing private sector homebuilders in England and Wales. Its members deliver around 80% of new homes built each year. with a "systemic nationwide failure" of missing and/or incorrectly installed fire cavity barriers in its timber frame properties. In March 2021, Persimmon CEO Dean Finch announced plans to double the firm's team of independent quality inspectors to over 60 by the end of 2021. In 2021, Persimmon built a block of properties the wrong way round in Colchester. The local authority required them to ensure the building was completed to the original designs submitted.


Health and safety failure

In 2001, Persimmon was fined £125,000 after an employee was crushed to death. HSE investigating inspector Tony Mitchell said: "Companies need to ensure that all safety devices are fully operational. In this case properly fitted interlocks would have prevented access to the enclosure, and saved a life".


Executive pay

In December 2017, Persimmon's chairman,
Nicholas Wrigley Nicholas Hugh Tremayne Wrigley (born 22 March 1955) is a British merchant banker and businessman, and the former chairman of Persimmon plc. Early life Wrigley was born on 22 March 1955, and educated at Harrow School. He is a chartered accountant. ...
, resigned over his role in awarding
Jeff Fairburn Jeffrey Fairburn (born 22 May 1966) is a British businessman, currently chief executive of Berkeley DeVeer, a Yorkshire-based house-builder. Fairburn was previously CEO of Persimmon plc, a British housebuilding company and constituent of the F ...
, the CEO, a £128 million bonus. The Persimmon bonus scheme was believed to be the UK's "most generous ever", scheduled to pay more than £800m to 150 senior staff from 31 December 2016. In October 2018, Fairburn received widespread criticism after refusing to discuss the bonus awarded to him the previous year. When the bonus was awarded he said he would forego half his shares: the final bonus which therefore was awarded £75 million. This was the largest bonus award by a listed UK company in history. Fairburn has said he would give a "substantial proportion" of the bonus to charity; however no details of the charities were given (and no charitable involvement could be identified three years later). In addition, analysis carried out showed the shares he retained were the most beneficial to him. Although the method used was legal, a more arbitrary cut across all the stock would have reduced his bonus to £60 million. He left the following month in a decision that the company described as being by "mutual agreement and at the request of the company".


Late payment

In April 2019, Persimmon Homes was suspended from the UK Government's Prompt Payment Code for failing to pay suppliers on time. It was reinstated around 10 months later.


References


External links


Official websitePersimmon plc corporate website
{{Authority control Construction and civil engineering companies established in 1972 Housebuilding companies of the United Kingdom Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange Companies based in York 1972 establishments in England