Kier Group

Foundation

The company was founded by Jorgen Lotz and Olaf Kier, Danish engineers, under the name Lotz & Kier in 1928, and it was based in Stoke-on-Trent.^[3]

A few years later Lotz withdrew from the company, but Olaf Kier retained a semblance of his identity by including Lotz's initials in the organisation's new name, J.L. Kier & Co Ltd, which remained the company's principal title for over four decades.^[4]

Pre-World War II

By the late 1930s Kier had moved its head office to Belgravia in Westminster, and thereby became neighbours to many of Britain's leading construction engineering consultants and contractors, who had formed a substantial coterie in Westminster for professionals and businessmen engaged in civil engineering. Immediate neighbours included Marples Ridgeway (builders of Hammersmith Flyover) and Edmund Nuttall (builders of both Mersey road tunnels).^[5]

Concrete engineering

During its first 35 years, Kier became identified with certain civil engineering specialisms, such as contiguous cylindrical reinforced concrete grain silos and cement silos, using continuously sliding formwork; commencing with those at Barking in 1929, followed by grain silos at Northampton, Peterborough, Melksham, Gloucester and Witham; and cement silos at Norwich, Cambridge, Trinidad, and in India.^[6]

Such specialist work was part of a pattern that quickly developed in the company's operations during that period, namely the undertaking of innovative, state-of-the-art civil engineering techniques at the forefront of modern technology. Other elements within this pattern were hyperbolic natural draft cooling towers (mostly around 300 ft high),^[7] monolithic concrete chimneys (sometimes over 400 ft high),^[8] complete power station structures,^[9] and coastal works such as tanker berths, docks and harbours.^[10]

Corner detail of Highpoint I, showing balcony profiles.

In the same period, only this time in the building sector, Kier were in the vanguard of new reinforced concrete systems for use as framework for tall buildings. Their most famous contribution in this field was an eight-storey avant-garde development of apartment blocks named Highpoint, located in Highgate Village, north London. They were responsible for the reinforced concrete and general building.^[11]

When this project was completed in 1935 it became widely renowned as the finest example of this form of construction for residential purposes. When Le Corbusier himself visited Highpoint in 1935 he said, "This beautiful building .... at Highgate is an achievement of the first rank."^[12] And American critic Henry Russell Hitchcock called it, "One of the finest, if not absolutely the finest, middle-class housing projects in the world"^[12] (in 1970 both Highpoint blocks were classified Grade I listed buildings).^[13]

Post-World War II

J.L. Kier & Co Ltd remained a private company until 1963 when it obtained a listing on the London Stock Exchange and became a public company. Its offer for shares was many times oversubscribed. The Kier family retained a significant majority of the holding. In 1973 Kier merged with W. & C. French to form French Kier but within the French division there were heavy losses on fixed-price motorway contracts and land development. A long-serving Kier engineer, John Mott, was appointed chief executive in order to revive the group's fortunes. Following an abortive bid for Abbey in 1985, French Kier itself was the subject of a hotly contested bid by Beazer, which eventually succeeded in January 1986.^[15]

Five years later (1991) Hanson plc bought Beazer plc^[16] and made an early decision to dispose of the contracting arm, now known simply as Kier. This was the subject of a management buyout in July 1992,^[17] with Hanson retaining a 10 per cent stake.^[18]

In 1993 Kier decided to re-enter the housing market with the £30m acquisition of Twigden Homes. This was followed by acquisitions of the southern division of Miller Homes in 1996, Bellwinch in 1998, and Allison Homes in 2001. By 2004, Kier housing sales were over 1,000 units a year.^[15] Kier was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1996.^[19]

21st century

In 2009, Mivan Kier, Kier's Romanian joint venture with the Northern Irish group Mivan, which invested in real estate projects in Bucharest, requested bankruptcy protection due to debts of €20 million.^[20][21]

In 2013, Kier acquired the services firm May Gurney for £221 million,^[22] becoming the then fourth largest contracting firm in the UK (behind Balfour Beatty, Carillion and Laing O'Rourke).^[23] In June 2015 Kier completed the acquisition of Mouchel, a business which included infrastructure services and business services divisions, for £265 million;^[24] Mouchel Infrastructure Services was rebranded as Mouchel Consulting, and sold to WSP Global in October 2016. In July 2017 Kier acquired McNicholas Construction, another UK infrastructure services provider.^[25]

After the collapse into liquidation of rival contracting and services provider Carillion in January 2018, Kier took on some of Carillion's staff and contracts: 150 Carillion workers employed on smart motorway joint ventures with Kier became Kier employees; 51 Carillion employees working on seven HS2 civil engineering packages awarded to the CEK joint venture were offered the opportunity to join Kier/Eiffage.^[26][27][28] However, because Kier shared some characteristics that contributed to Carillion's collapse - problem contracts, rising debts, and use of reverse factoring supply chain finance - City hedge funds began to 'short' Kier's shares, with 10.9% of Kier's shares shorted by 30 August 2018,^[29] rising to 18% ahead of a results announcement on 20 September 2018,^[30] though Kier's position was not regarded as risky as Carillion's.^[31] The 2018 results were in line with City expectations - showing a pre-tax profit of £137m from stable revenue of £4.5 billion - with Kier outlining clear debt reduction plans, and shares rose 5% in early trading.^[32][33]