Kier To Focus On Social Housing

Kier Group is set to move away from private home development anf concentrate is efforts towards social housing and its construction business. Its focus now is to be on "partnership housing", acting as a contractor for public agencies looking to build social units.

Chief executive,John Dodds said, "There's a sea-change in how we're running the business...The traditional model of housebuilding,buying land, putting up a house, selling it on spec is something that will disappear from our business."

Prior to the downturn, Kier had been the 15th-largest housebuilder in the UK, building about 2,000 homes a year. In the past two months its housing activity levels have been down by 76%, in line with other developers.

Kier's landbank of 6,000 units is now being examined, possibly with a view to converting it to other use.The move would free up cash to invest in its more resilient construction and support services business, which provided the bulk of its £2.4bn sales in the year to June, up from £2.1bn the year before.Pre-tax profits of £63.4m (£77.6m) were dragged down by land writedowns of £31m and redundancy costs.