Wrekin Group bought by London and Middle Eastern Group

John Dance will continue as interim chief executive of Wrekin while the £100m-a-year turnover group based in Shifnal, Shropshire, transfers from the ownership of the Frain family to its new buyer, London and Middle Eastern Group.

London and Middle Eastern Group, a shell company with no trading accounts filed at Companies House, has just one share. It reports that its ultimate parent is Kingstone Foundation, based in the Channel Islands.

When contacted, Kingstone was unwilling to divulge any information relating to its ownership.

However, a statement from Wrekin says that the new owner is run by the Unwin and Woodcock families.

David Unwin (senior), David Unwin (junior) and John Woodcock have all been invited to join the Wrekin board.

Two of Wrekin’s management team have also been offered the chance to become minority shareholders: they are Peter Greenwood, who heads up Wrekin’s eastern region from an office in Raunds, Northamptonshire, and Nick Ibbotson who steers Wrekin’s western region from Shifnal.

Tom Frain, who founded Wrekin, handed over the reins to his son Dr Simon Frain but recently the family had decided it was time to look for a new owner.

The group has worked its way out of troubled times Over the past two years, it stepped back out of an earlier move into the utilities sector, returning to its core territories of civils, rail, regeneration plus a small element of construction work.

Dance moved into the hot seat 20 weeks ago.

“I steadied the ship,” he says. “My skills are in interim management. I won’t be here long-term but I’ll give continuity.”

Dance was previously with Rok, having retired from corporate life.

He said: “It’s business as usual. There will be no redundancies. We do a few D&B schemes, up to a value of £2m, but mostly Wrekin’s market is in projects up to £10m in value which is under the radar of the big boys such as Balfour Beatty, Costain and McAlpine.”

Headhunters, engaged to find a suitable chief executive prior to the transfer of ownership of Wrekin but then put on hold, will now get back on the move.

The Unwin and Woodcock families are said to be active as developers of difficult sites where they sort out the environmental problems and regenerate the land through new properties.

In addition, they are reported to be active in the provision of aggregates and recycled materials.