SPECULATION is mounting that Edinburgh-based Miller Homes is on the verge of being taken over by private equity giant Bridgepoint in a deal valuing the housebuilder at more than £600 million.
Reports linking Bridgepoint, whose portfolio includes coffee and sandwich chain Pret A Manger, with Miller resurfaced last night, after a deal was first mooted in April. It has been reported that a deal could be done as early as this month.
However the price-tag this time is reportedly lower than the £800m figure quoted then. Neither Miller, which is majority owned by private equity firm GSO Capital, or Bridgepoint made any comment when contacted last night.
The fresh speculation comes after a series of UK housebuilders defied the economic uncertainty following the Brexit vote to report bumper financial results this year, with the market boosted by measures such as Help to Buy.
In March Miller, which scrapped plans for a stock market flotation three years ago, reported a 44 per cent increase in annual profits to £89m. That came as it built 612 homes in Scotland.
The housebuilder has carried that momentum into its current financial year, reporting earlier this month that it has already forward sold more than 90 per cent of homes across its Scottish developments for 2017.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here