McCarthy & Stone

McCarthy & Stone
Public (LSE: MCS.L)
Industry Housebuilding
Founded 1977
Headquarters Bournemouth, England, United Kingdom
Key people
 John White (Chairman)
Clive Fenton (CEO)
Revenue £635.9 million (2016)[1]
£107.2 million (2016)[1]
£105 million (2016)[1]
Number of employees
 circa 900
Website www.mccarthyandstone.co.uk

McCarthy & Stone is a leading retirement housebuilder, based in the UK. The company operates from nine regional offices, and is responsible for building and selling more than 70% of the UK’s owner-occupied retirement housing each year.[2] Since 1977, it has been responsible for buying and selling 51,000 properties across more than 1,100 developments in the UK.[3] The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and it is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

History

John McCarthy and Bill Stone entered into a partnership in 1961 and in 1977 they built their first retirement housing development in Hampshire. McCarthy & Stone stopped all its other building work to concentrate on developing specialist housing for elderly people.[4] By 1982, when the Company was floated on the Unlisted Securities Market, McCarthy & Stone had completed 15 retirement housing developments and were selling around 200 units a year.[5]

Growth was rapid after the flotation and by 1984 the company had a national organisation in place with annual sales approaching 1,000 units. The business was exceptionally profitable due to a rapidly ageing population.[4] Annual sales reached 2,601 in 1988.[4]

McCarthy & Stone was de-listed from the London Stock Exchange in December 2006 following a successful takeover bid of over £1 billion from a consortium including David and Simon Reuben and Sir Tom Hunter.[6] The company successfully refinanced in August 2013 under new ownership.[7]

The company was re-listed on the London Stock Exchange in November 2015.[8]

In March 2016, McCarthy & Stone became the only UK housebuilder, of any size or type, to win the full five star rating in the Home Builders Federation’s customer satisfaction awards for a record 11 consecutive years.[9]

In November 2016, it won two awards at the annual Housebuilder Awards, including Best Retirement Scheme for Ramsay Grange and Lyle Court, its combined Assisted Living and Ortus Homes development in Barnton, Edinburgh, and Best Customer Satisfaction Initiative.

Operations

McCarthy & Stone Head office

Retirement Living Apartments

Each Retirement Living development incorporates features specifically for the older homeowner, to make life easier in retirement. A typical development consists of circa 40 one and two bed apartments, a House Manager plus shared facilities such as a homeowners’ lounge, guest suite and laundry. Homeowners have to be 60 or over to live in most developments.

Assisted Living Apartments

Assisted Living apartments bridge the gap between a conventional retirement development and a care home. Assisted Living can help postpone the need to consider residential care and the person continues to own their own home. Developments include individual apartments, a restaurant, function room, homeowners’ lounge and other shared facilities. Flexible care and support packages are available as required. Homeowners have to be 70 or over to live in most developments.

Ortus Homes

Ortus Homes is a new product from the McCarthy & Stone Group which offers accommodation for those who are 55+. Different from the core Retirement Living product an Ortus Home development has fewer units, larger apartments and more car parking facilities.[10]

Affordable housing

McCarthy & Stone also provides affordable housing separate from the main dwelling complex.[11]

Management Services

In 2010, McCarthy & Stone took its management services in-house, ending its long relationship with the management company Peverel. McCarthy & Stone Management Services provides services and support in its Retirement Living and Ortus Homes schemes, while the company has entered into a partnership with Somerset Care, one of the largest not-for-profit care companies in the UK, to provide management, support and care in its Assisted Living schemes. This partnership is known as YourLife Management Services.[12]

Retirement Market

The number of people aged 65 and over in the UK is set to grow from 11.6 million in 2015 to 17.2 million by 2035, an increase of more than 50%, while the number of people aged 85 and over is set to more than double from just over 1.5 million in 2015 to almost 3.2 million in 2035, an increase of over 131%.[2]

One quarter of UK homeowners aged 60 and over express particular interest in buying a retirement property, a total of 3.5 million people, for reasons that range from moving closer to family, to reducing the risk of accidents by moving into purpose-built accommodation.[13]

Those aged 60 and over also hold approximately £1.3 trillion in housing equity, with £400 billion of this tied up in homes of those who want to downsize, which indicates that alongside a strong inclination to move, providing the options to allow them to access this wealth through downsizing, could help older property owners to address the challenge of funding costs associated with later life, such as care needs.[13]

However, as of April 2014, there were only c128,000 retirement properties built for owner occupiers in England and Wales.[14]

Offices

The Company’s head office is in Bournemouth. In addition, regional offices are located in Glasgow, Altrincham, York, Coventry, Hatfield, Woking, Ringwood, Taunton and Kettering.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Annual Results announcement for the year ended 31 August 2016" (PDF). McCarthy & Stone. Retrieved 3 November 2016.
  2. 1 2 "2012-based Subnational Population Projections for England – ONS". Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  3. ↑ "McCarthy & Stone on course to build 3,000 retirement homes a year" City AM. Retrieved 2015-02-03.
  4. 1 2 3 Wellings, Fred: Dictionary of British Housebuilders (2006) Troubador. ISBN 978-0-9552965-0-5
  5. ↑ Company Prospectus (1982)
  6. ↑ "Reubens and Hunter pounce at McCarthy". This is money. 1 August 2006. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  7. ↑ "New McCarthy & Stone boss wields the axe". Construction Index. 6 March 2014. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  8. ↑ "McCarthy & Stone prices IPO at 180p per share". Digital Look. 6 November 2015. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  9. ↑ Gale, Mark. "5-star rated for 11th year in a row!". McCarthy & Stone. McCarthy & Stone.
  10. ↑ Emperor Design. "Luxury Home Builders Ortus Homes – Our Story". Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  11. ↑ "UK builder of retirement homes and flats – McCarthy & Stone". Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  12. ↑ Lindsay Fortado (1 July 2012). "McCarthy & Stone to Sell Financial Services, Sunday Times Says". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  13. 1 2 Demos: Top of the Ladder (2013)
  14. ↑ Age UK: Buying Retirement Housing Factsheet (April 2014)
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