Pete Redfern, the long-serving boss of Taylor Wimpey, has announced plans to stand down in the new year, days after reports surfaced that an activist investor was targeting the housebuilder.
Redfern, 51, was originally the chief executive of George Wimpey and was appointed to lead Taylor Wimpey in 2007 after brokering the merger with Taylor Woodrow in a motorway café on the M40.
Despite losing its leader of nearly 15 years, share in Taylor Wimpey nudged 1½p, or 0.9 per cent, higher to 169¼p yesterday.
Redfern’s decision to step aside comes days after Elliott Management, the activist investor, was reported to have built a small stake in Taylor Wimpey. He emphasised that this played no role in his decision making and that he had been contemplating his future for a while. “We’ve been talking about this for a long time,” Redfern said.
“I went straight from university into KPMG into Rugby Group and then into Taylor Wimpey. I’ve never had a break.”
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He will stay on as chief executive until his successor has been appointed and expects to deliver the group’s interim results in the spring and possibly the full-year figures next summer. Taylor Wimpey said the recruitment process is advanced and that the board is looking at internal and external candidates.
But one senior industry insider said that the timing “looks really odd”. They added: “I think he’s played into Elliott’s hands.”
Others have questioned the decision to leave without having a successor lined up, but Redfern said that stock market disclosure rules left Taylor Wimpey with no choice but to announce it. “It has been a privilege to work at Taylor Wimpey for the last two decades and to lead a business of which I am so proud,” Redfern said.
“The business is in excellent health and is well positioned for strong future growth. Accordingly, I am confident that now is the right time for fresh leadership as Taylor Wimpey starts the next chapter.”
Redfern is one of the longestserving chief executives on the FTSE 100, having been in charge for more than 14 years.
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He has seen the business through Brexit and the pandemic but picks out the financial crisis as his toughest period professionally.
Redfern rescued the business from the threat of collapse in 2009, when he pushed through a rights issue and refinanced its debts. He has since built it into Britain’s third-largest housebuilder with a market capitalisation of about £6.1 billion. This year, the company expects that it will build about 14,000 homes and turn an operating profit of £820 million or so.
Once he has handed over duties to his successor, Redfern wants to take time out with his wife and five children. He also wants to devote more time to his hobbies, which include mountain biking and woodworking. He said he has not retired but neither is he in talks with a future employer. He plans to return to work eventually and refused to rule out running a listed company again or coming back to the building sector.
“Pete has made an invaluable contribution to the business during his almost 15 years as CEO,” Irene Dorner, chairwoman, said.
Profile: Hobbyist has a long shelf life
When Pete Redfern was made the boss of Taylor Wimpey at the age of 37, he was the youngest chief executive of a FTSE 100 company (Tom Howard writes).
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He has spent the best part of 15 years navigating the business through the global financial crisis, which nearly sent it under, then Brexit and most recently the pandemic. During his time Redfern has turned Taylor Wimpey into one of the UK’s biggest housebuilders but it hasn’t been without controversy.
Two years ago he made a “personal decision” to pull out of plans to buy a luxury London flat from Taylor Wimpey at a £436,000 discount to the original £2.5 million asking price. That was after executive pay campaigners described the purchase as a “gratuitous bonus”.
In 2017 Taylor Wimpey apologised to customers and set aside £130 million to make its ground rents less expensive. This year the Competition and Markets Authority, unsatisfied, ordered it to remove contract terms that meant leaseholders had to pay ground rents that double every ten years.
Redfern insists that the timing of his departure has nothing to do with the reported arrival of Elliott on the shareholder register, and is more to do with a desire to spend more time with his family and enjoying his hobbies. “I’m quite a keen woodworker. We’ve just built a new house and I kind of want to build the shelves and cupboards for the study,” he said.
Redfern, who took home £3.2 million in salary and bonuses last year, won’t get a payoff when he leaves. He will own about £4.1 million of shares, plus 3.3 million unvested share options. “I look at the land-buying that we did last year and I think it puts us in a stronger place for growth delivery than anybody else in the sector. The business is in a strong place.”
