Management to buy Crest's construction division for £9.2m

Crest Nicholson has announced today (Friday) that it is to sell its construction division to its management for £9.2m.

Crest has entered into a conditional agreement to sell the division, Pearce Group, to the management team, headed by John Rackstraw for £7.7m and £1.5m in preference shares in the MBO vehicle, Pearce Holdings Ltd.

Crest's shareholders will vote on the deal at an extraordinary general meeting to be held in January 2003.

The audited accounts of Pearce for the year to end October showed a pre-tax loss of £3.3 m.

The housebuilding business of Cox Homes, a specialist developer of small sites in and around the Cotswolds, previously part of Pearce, has been retained by Crest and will operate as a separate business unit in Crest's residential division.

On current trading Crest said it expects the results for the year to end October 2002 to represent a further record in terms of pre-tax profits and earnings per share and to be in line with current market expectations.