Through the group’s “alternative asset” business, Legal and General Capital, it owns 3,000-homes-a-year traditional housebuilder Cala, an urban build-to-rent development business, a suburban build-to-rent business, a for-profit affordable homes provider, two later living businesses, Inspired Villages and Guild Living, and its modular housebuilding business, L&G Modular.Īnd this is not to mention the array of wider development deals with universities and city mayors – such as a £4bn regeneration and housing deal with West Midlands Combined Authority boss Andy Street, or the similarly-sized joint venture with Oxford University. Since taking the top job, Wilson has overseen a dizzying array of investments in the housing sector. “We want people to have those opportunities today.” And that created an opportunity, and I would never have been here today if I had continued to live with my grandparents in a massively overcrowded house. “I went to the local new school, with new teachers, new everything – and that really created a platform for the rest of my life. I got to move into a new council house, a two-bedroom house, very different at the time – we were just so excited about it. He says: “When I grew up, I grew up in Newton Aycliffe, which was a new town. > See also L&G pledges £4bn investment in west Midlandsīut there’s clearly personal history with housing too. > See also L&G Modular: the potential to transform housing delivery A one-time director at commercial developer Stanhope, Wilson also clearly has an affinity with the development trade – one of his catchphrases is that cities “aren’t overbuilt, they’re under-demolished”. Having that commentary is incredibly valuable to all of us.”īut the housing push seems more than just fitting the inclusive capitalism mould. Speaking at the same event, Rees said: “I really value some of the public commentary that we have from L&G about the nature of the economy and capitalism, and how we make sure values are stitched into the way the economy works. It is a message which clearly resonates with L&G’s public sector customers, such as Bristol’s Labour mayor Marvin Rees, and maybe makes its £2.2bn in annual pre-tax profit easier to justify. I would never have been here today if I had continued to live in a massively overcrowded house” ”I got to move into a new council house– and that really created a platform for the rest of my life. But it needs recycling in a way that makes a difference in people’s lives.” “The world still is full of lots of money,” he says, “though it’s a bit more expensive than it used to be. And, with the UK gripped by a housing crisis, the residential development sector unsurprisingly meets all of Wilson’s requirements for “inclusive capitalism” – real physical assets, that can meet an urgent social need, and that can deliver a solid financial return for L&G’s many pension holders. I meet Wilson at the launch of a major modular scheme – Bonnington Walk, in Bristol – to ask him what has made it all so hard, and whether his patience with the sector is limitless.Īn unconventional FTSE 100 chief executive, this former council estate boy from County Durham is a capitalist who reportedly claims welfare state founder William Beveridge as his hero and has Karl Marx sitting on his bookshelf. ![]() The modular business it set up six years ago has racked up more than £170m in losses and is yet to turn a profit, while its flagship later living business, Inspired Villages, is also loss-making. While its traditional housebuilding activities have progressed well, the more innovative activities have struggled through choppy waters. But L&G’s investment has not been plain sailing. In few areas has this strategy and this vision played out more obviously than in L&G’s headlong plunge into residential development, where it has a plan to build 10,000 homes per year – which would make it the UK’s fourth biggest housebuilder. His strategy to deliver this vision has been, on one level, simple: to take the billions in pension liabilities that L&G looks after (actually a staggering £1.3 trillion at the latest count) and, rather than engage in complex financial engineering, look instead for real physical assets to invest in which both deliver socially and generate long-term stable returns. Under Nigel Wilson L&G has taken a headlong plunge into housing Building Boardroom Digital Construction Academy. ![]() ![]() Construction Business: Strategy, Risk and Regulations.
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