Asking price: £880,000

Sales revenue: £630,000

Net profit: £200,000

Fixtures value: Undisclosed

Stock value: Undisclosed

Business description
Established twenty years ago, this business has worked almost exclusively within the construction industry specialising in all aspects of soft landscaping including turfing and planting, show home and sales area, individual and communal plot landscaping. Such is the reputation this business has built within its sector, its Client list reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of the building and construction industry, including the names of almost all of the major housebuilders active in the South East.

Based in Kent, this business is sufficiently confident in its own abilities to concentrate on projects much closer to home, providing a high quality and competitive service to an extensive Client list, working primarily within a 50 mile radius and on developments within easy reach of the M25 motorway. This business also clearly knows what it is good at and what it is not, concentrating only on projects it feels comfortable with, ensuring it successfully delivers time after time and lets none of its Clients down.

Over the many years of its operation this business has gained a unique insight into the specialist requirements of the construction sector, being large enough and flexible enough to deal very effectively with very large scale projects and varying volumes of work, but above all providing reliability and integrity. This business places great emphasis on quality in all things it does and is particularly responsive to Client needs, maintaining a close personal contact with Site Managers and Head Office staff ensuring that even the strictest of deadlines are met, enabling the developer to stay on course with sales projections.

This business is able to meet all requirements, implementing a scheme to a Client’s own design and specifications, working on small and very select developments right through to sites involving in excess of 150 homes. All work is undertaken by fully trained and highly experienced staff.

As a result of the excellent quality of service, this business provides, in almost all cases this business is called upon to maintain the grounds of the developments it has installed, often without the requirement for tendering. Such is the consistency of its performance, it is still cutting the grass on some of the developments it completed over twelve years ago.

This is a very well run, long established business with an excellent reputation and an extensive repeat Client base. With turnover for the financial year ending June 2006 of approximately £630,000 and gross profits in excess of £500,000, this represents an excellent investment opportunity for anyone looking to acquire a major player in soft landscape contracting in the South East.


Key strengths:

Very well established, this business has built an excellent reputation within the construction sector for completing high quality works on time and on budget. This business appreciates more than any, the importance of reliability and the difficulties its Clients face when attempting to complete large scale building projects on time. It is structured in a way so as to be very flexible but above all responsive to Client requirements, dealing with Client instructions, particularly on the maintenance side within a twenty four hour period whenever possible. Not surprisingly, this business can boast an extensive base of long standing Clients comprising almost all the leading building developers and construction companies operating in the South East, with which this business has ‘Approved Contractor’ or ‘Preferred Supplier’ status, often working to approved rates negating the requirement for costly and time wasting tendering.

This business has an excellent reputation within its sector and is in the enviable position of being able to pick and choose its projects – minimising travelling time by concentrating its activities locally and staying within its ‘comfort zone’ in terms of the work it takes on. As a result it is good at what it does and has a well trained, highly motivated, experienced, workforce, confident in delivering what is required.

Key opportunities:

The UK is set to embark on a significant house building programme in order to meet the huge demand for new housing anticipated over the next decade – with a large proportion of the houses that are to be built likely to be constructed by the current Client base of this business and other developers within its catchment area. Development projects known to be in the pipeline offer a good opportunity to include the Olympic development, the Thames Gateway with huge development also scheduled around the Ashford area of Kent. This business is ideally placed to take maximum advantage of this anticipated growth. Even at present there is ample opportunity to leverage its excellent track record to establish relationships with a number of other builders and developers which are currently active locally and have not as yet used the services of this business.

Aside from this there are several opportunities to increase this business in several other directions. It could extend its range of services to include hard landscaping, tree surgery or landscape design, for example. To date this business has had no need to advertise, investment in this area – establishing an Internet presence, featuring in local directories etc would enable this business to enter the private sector and extend its very limited presence amongst local authorities, from which tenders, particularly for lucrative maintenance contracts are issued at frequent intervals.

Employees: The two joint Owners of the business are responsible for the day-to-day performance of the business, supported by two site foremen, one responsible for construction projects and the other for maintenance together with three other directly employed staff and part time administrative assistance. The business also calls upon additional ad hoc staff as and when required. Many of the tradesmen are longstanding employees reflecting the high levels of customer satisfaction they have generated from the projects they have worked on in the past.

Property: N/A

Location
This business currently operates from five small units, each within just a few yards of each other on a small industrial estate, on large industrial area, ideally located with easy access to the M2, M20 and M25 motorways and the sites of its extensive Client base.

One unit, of approximately 1600 square feet and purchased by the Owners of the business ;personally some time ago, is currently used as office accommodation with the other four units and a locked up yard used for storage of equipment, transport and consumables.

The commercial rent for each unit is between £80 and £100 per unit, per week. Rates for the unit currently used as office accommodation is approximately £1900 per annum with the Rates for the other four, combined, approximately £6,820 per year.

The freehold to the single unit is available, subject to negotiation, in addition to the Asking Price. Alternatively the business could easily be relocated within the South East.

Expansion potential
Aside from this there are several opportunities to increase this business in several other directions. It could extend its range of services to include hard landscaping, tree surgery or landscape design, for example. To date this business has had no need to advertise, investment in this area – establishing an Internet presence, featuring in local directories etc would enable this business to enter the private sector and extend its very limited presence amongst local authorities, from which tenders, particularly for lucrative maintenance contracts are issued at frequent intervals.

Competition / Market
Well established, with an excellent reputation within its specialist sector, this business has little need of advertising benefiting greatly from the most effective form of marketing available, word of mouth recommendation. The details of this business are frequently passed from Project Manager to Project Manager and from Surveyor to Surveyor, with the business often taken by key contacts to new organisations when they change jobs. The business has a small entry in the local Yellow Pages. The business does not currently have a web presence – the development of a website could have a considerable impact on the performance of the business, particularly as far as the Private sector is concerned.

Support & training
The Owners are happy to provide a period of training and handover to ensure a smooth transfer of the business.

Reasons for selling
Having worked in the business for over twenty years the Owners feel the time is right for a change of direction and pass the business on to new Owners to build on the excellent foundations already laid.