​Another former Persimmon director moves to Avant Homes

A former boss of Persimmon Homes South Yorkshire has become the latest to make the move to the Yorkshire housebuilder Avant Homes.  

Avant said Alan Hopwood will take on the role of group managing director at the business.

His appointment as a director was registered at Companies House on Monday of the £505m-turnover Yorkshire firm, having previously worked for Persimmon for 15 years.

At Persimmon he was most recently the managing director of Persimmon Homes South Yorkshire, while before that he set up Persimmon Teesside in 2015.

The appointment comes after former Persimmon strategy director Richard Stenhouse was announced as the firm’s new chief financial officer this month, replacing long-service CFO Giles Sharp. 

Don Anderson was also appointed as Avant’s new managing director for the north east earlier this month. Anderson was a former construction director of Bellway and Persimmon Homes. 

The appointments follow the controversial former boss of Persimmon, Jeff Fairburn, taking over at Avant Homes last year. He spearheaded an audacious takeover of Avant by a Yorkshire-based SME Berkeley DeVeer, which last year had a turnover of £28m, in a deal backed by private equity firm Elliott Advisers. 

A spokesperson from Avant Homes:  “We are delighted to welcome Alan to Avant Homes as group managing director. He brings extensive experience from over 30 years working in the housebuilding sector and adds further strength to our team as we continue on our journey to become one of the UK’s leading housebuilders.”

The Berkeley deVeer takeover was followed shortly after by the departure of Avant’s former chief executive, Colin Lewis, citing concerns over the direction of the company under Fairburn’s leadership. In January this year Avant’s then chief executive Mark Mitchell left, less than a year after the Jeff Fairburn-led buyout. 

Fairburn was forced to step down from Persimmon in 2018 after a controversial £75m performance bonus, before returning to the housing industry in January 2020 to run Berkeley DeVeer. His time at Persimmon was marked by delivery of huge returns to shareholders, but culminated in controversy over both his bonus and a build quality crisis at the firm, with an independent investigation finding it guilty of a systemic nationwide failure to install cavity barriers.

Avant’s 2021 accounts were hit by the sale to Berkeley DeVeer, with a pre-tax loss of £3m to April 2021.