Changes at the top of Scottish housebuilder ahead of sale to US private equity group

Miller Homes has appointed Stewart Lynes as its new chief executive.

The £665m-turnover Scottish housebuilder announced that Lynes will be promoted from chief operating officer to the top job from the end of this month.

He replaces current chief executive Chris Endsor, who will step into an executive chair role. 

Stewart Lynes

Stewart Lynes is the new chief executive of Miller Homes

The changes come ahead of the expected completion of the company’s sale to US equity giant Apollo for a reported £1.2bn. The sale is due to go through by the end of March.

Lynes joined Miller 15 years ago and has held several senior positions.

Endsor will lead Miller Homes’ board and support the company’s plan for growth. The company wants to increase its development to 6,000 homes a year, which would represent a 71% on the 3,500 homes it completed in 2019 pre-pandemic.

Lynes said: “It will be a privilege to step up to CEO at an important time for Miller Homes. We have an exceptional team and our position as one of the country’s leading homebuilders means we are well placed to continue our strong performance trajectory.

“I look forward to leading the business and continuing our strategy of building high quality homes in our core regional markets and creating value for all of our stakeholders.”

The company completed 2,500 homes in 2020 amid covid-19 disruption and reported a pre-tax profit of £64m off revenue of £665m, which was down on 2019’s turnover figure of £841m.

According to Housing Today’s Top 35 Housebuilders listing, Miller is already the UK’s twelfth largest homebuilder by turnover, recorded in its most recent financial results. In May, Miller bought £5m-turnover strategic land business Wallace Land Investments, adding 41 sites and 17,500 plots to its strategic land bank. This move increased the number of sites it owns by almost 50% to 119, and almost doubled the number of potential plots under its control, to around 38,000. Miller hit the headlines in November after admitting polluting a watercourse in Huddersfield for more than one kilometre. The firm was fined £200,000.

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