Kier Group
Encyclopedia
Kier Group plc is a construction
, services and property group active in building
and civil engineering
, support services, public and private housebuilding, land development
and the Private Finance Initiative
(PFI). It is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index
.
, Danish
engineers, under the name Lotz & Kier in 1928, and it was based in Stoke-on-Trent
.
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.
By the late 1930s Kier had moved their 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. Their immediate neighbours were Marples Ridgeway (builders of Hammersmith Flyover
) and Edmund Nuttall
(builders of both Mersey road tunnels
).
During the first thirty-five years of its existence 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.
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), monolithic concrete chimneys (sometimes over 400 ft high), complete power station structures, and coastal works such as tanker berths, docks and harbours.
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.
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." And American critic Henry Russell Hitchcock called it, "One of the finest, if not absolutely the finest, middle-class housing projects in the world." In 1970 this reputation gained official recognition when both Highpoint blocks were classified Grade I within the historic buildings listing programme.
While Olaf Kier remained at the helm of the organisation he had firstly projected plans, then active plans, for family succession within the group's top management, but unfortunately these did not achieve fruition. His son by his first marriage was sadly killed in a riding accident in 1945. Then during the 1950s Olaf introduced his nephew, Mogens Kier, into the firm's management structure, but this did not lead to his assuming principal position in the organisation. Olaf died in an accident in 1986, aged 87;and Mogens died in 2003.
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.
Five years later (1991) Hanson plc
bought Beazer plc and made an early decision to dispose of the Beazer contracting arm. The contracting business was disposed of the following year via a management buyout
, in which Hanson retained ten per-cent of the equity. In 1993 Kier decided to re-enter the housing market with the £30m acquisition of Twigden Homes. This was followed by 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 a year. Kier was now a balanced construction and housebuilding group.
A listing on the London Stock Exchange was obtained in 1996.
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.
completed in 1935, the North Terminal at Gatwick Airport completed in 1988, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project
completed in 1998,Hairmyres Hospital
completed in 2001, High Speed 1 completed in 2007, the UK Supreme Court in London
completed in 2009 and Snowhill Phase 2
in Birmingham
completed in 2009.
Construction
In the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of human multitasking...
, services and property group active in building
Building
In architecture, construction, engineering, real estate development and technology the word building may refer to one of the following:...
and civil engineering
Civil engineering
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...
, support services, public and private housebuilding, land development
Land development
Land development refers to altering the landscape in any number of ways such as:* changing landforms from a natural or semi-natural state for a purpose such as agriculture or housing...
and the Private Finance Initiative
Private Finance Initiative
The private finance initiative is a way of creating "public–private partnerships" by funding public infrastructure projects with private capital...
(PFI). It is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index
FTSE 250 Index
The FTSE 250 Index is a capitalisation-weighted index consisting of the 101st to the 350th largest companies on the London Stock Exchange. Promotions to and demotions from the index take place quarterly in March, June, September and December...
.
History
The Company was founded by Jorgen Lotz and Olaf KierOlaf Kier
Olaf Kier CBE was the founder of Kier Group, one of the United Kingdom's largest construction businesses.-Career:Born and educated in Denmark as Olaf Kiaer, Olaf moved to England to pursue his career. Together with Jorgen Lotz, he founded Lotz & Kier, a construction business, in 1928. The business...
, Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
engineers, under the name Lotz & Kier in 1928, and it was based in Stoke-on-Trent
Stoke-on-Trent
Stoke-on-Trent , also called The Potteries is a city in Staffordshire, England, which forms a linear conurbation almost 12 miles long, with an area of . Together with the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme Stoke forms The Potteries Urban Area...
.
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.
By the late 1930s Kier had moved their head office to Belgravia
Belgravia
Belgravia is a district of central London in the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Noted for its immensely expensive residential properties, it is one of the wealthiest districts in the world...
in Westminster
Westminster
Westminster is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and southwest of Charing Cross...
, 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. Their immediate neighbours were Marples Ridgeway (builders of Hammersmith Flyover
Hammersmith Flyover
Hammersmith Flyover is an elevated roadway in west London which carries the A4 arterial road over and to one side of the central Hammersmith gyratory system, and it links together the Cromwell Road extension with the start of the Great West Road.It was one of the first examples of an elevated road...
) and Edmund Nuttall
Edmund Nuttall
BAM Nuttall Limited is a construction and civil engineering company headquartered in Camberley, United Kingdom. It has been involved in a portfolio of road, rail, nuclear, and other major projects worldwide...
(builders of both Mersey road tunnels
Mersey Tunnels
The Mersey Tunnels connect Liverpool with the Wirral Peninsula, under the River Mersey. There are three tunnels: the Mersey Railway Tunnel , and two road tunnels, the Queensway Tunnel and the Kingsway Tunnel...
).
During the first thirty-five years of its existence 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.
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), monolithic concrete chimneys (sometimes over 400 ft high), complete power station structures, and coastal works such as tanker berths, docks and harbours.
Highpoint I
Highpoint I was the first of two apartment blocks erected in the 1930s on one of the highest points in London, England at Highgate. The architectural design was by Russian-born architect Berthold Lubetkin, the structural design by Danish engineer Ove Arup and the construction by Kier.Highpoint I...
, located in Highgate Village
Highgate
Highgate is an area of North London on the north-eastern corner of Hampstead Heath.Highgate is one of the most expensive London suburbs in which to live. It has an active conservation body, the Highgate Society, to protect its character....
, north London. They were responsible for the reinforced concrete and general building.
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
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
himself visited Highpoint in 1935 he said, "This beautiful building .... at Highgate is an achievement of the first rank." And American critic Henry Russell Hitchcock called it, "One of the finest, if not absolutely the finest, middle-class housing projects in the world." In 1970 this reputation gained official recognition when both Highpoint blocks were classified Grade I within the historic buildings listing programme.
While Olaf Kier remained at the helm of the organisation he had firstly projected plans, then active plans, for family succession within the group's top management, but unfortunately these did not achieve fruition. His son by his first marriage was sadly killed in a riding accident in 1945. Then during the 1950s Olaf introduced his nephew, Mogens Kier, into the firm's management structure, but this did not lead to his assuming principal position in the organisation. Olaf died in an accident in 1986, aged 87;and Mogens died in 2003.
J.L. Kier & Co Ltd remained a private company until 1963 when it obtained a listing on the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
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.
Five years later (1991) Hanson plc
Hanson plc
Hanson plc is a British based international building materials company, headquartered in Maidenhead. Traded on the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index for many years, the company was acquired by a division of German rival Heidelberg Cement in August 2007.-History:Hanson...
bought Beazer plc and made an early decision to dispose of the Beazer contracting arm. The contracting business was disposed of the following year via a management buyout
Management buyout
A management buyout is a form of acquisition where a company's existing managers acquire a large part or all of the company.- Overview :Management buyouts are similar in all major legal aspects to any other acquisition of a company...
, in which Hanson retained ten per-cent of the equity. In 1993 Kier decided to re-enter the housing market with the £30m acquisition of Twigden Homes. This was followed by 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 a year. Kier was now a balanced construction and housebuilding group.
A listing on the London Stock Exchange was obtained in 1996.
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.
Operations
The company has three divisions: Kier Construction, Kier Services and Kier Property. These are further split into smaller companies.Major projects
Projects involving the company have included Highpoint IHighpoint I
Highpoint I was the first of two apartment blocks erected in the 1930s on one of the highest points in London, England at Highgate. The architectural design was by Russian-born architect Berthold Lubetkin, the structural design by Danish engineer Ove Arup and the construction by Kier.Highpoint I...
completed in 1935, the North Terminal at Gatwick Airport completed in 1988, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project
Lesotho Highlands Water Project
The Lesotho Highlands Water Project is an ongoing water supply project with a hydropower component, developed in partnership between the governments of Lesotho and South Africa. It comprises a system of several large dams and tunnels throughout Lesotho and South Africa. In Lesotho, it involves the...
completed in 1998,Hairmyres Hospital
Hairmyres Hospital
Hairmyres Hospital is a busy district general hospital in East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire, Scotland. The hospital serves one of the largest elderly populations in Scotland.-The Hospital:...
completed in 2001, High Speed 1 completed in 2007, the UK Supreme Court in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
completed in 2009 and Snowhill Phase 2
Snowhill
Snowhill is a mixed-use development by Ballymore between Snow Hill Queensway and Birmingham Snow Hill station in Birmingham City Centre, England. The £500 million phased scheme has been partly completed on the site of a former surface car park adjacent to the railway station. As part of the...
in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
completed in 2009.