Construction
2017: No.28 - £160m
2016: No.24 - £162m
Rupert Mucklow’s industrial property group is shifting its focus in the wake of slowing yields. As the regional property investment market became more subdued the company has chosen to focus on creating its own industrial investments, with pre-let developments where there is good occupier demand.
As executive chairman of Cradley Heath-based A&J Mucklow Group – one of the region’s leading industrial property companies - he is reducing his commitment to the business to concentrate on family matters. A board shake-up has seen new non-executive directors join the company.
The business is still reporting good results. The half year figures to the end of 2015 showed gross rental income was 9.7 per cent higher than the previous year at £11.5 million. Underlying pre-tax profit for the period increased by £1.0 million to £7.5 million. In the first half of 2016 vacancy rates fell to 3.2 per cent and have continued to improve.
All this is good news for A & J Mucklow which is structured as a real estate investment trust and is the largest quoted investment property company in the Midlands. It has a property portfolio worth £360 million.
Rupert Mucklow, aged 52, has been executive chairman of A&J Mucklow since 2004 when his father, Albert, stepped down. He owns nearly a third of the business.
Founded in 1933, the firm began life as a housebuilder but in the 1960s – having gone public in 1962 - moved away from homes and concentrated on investing in and developing industrial, commercial and retail property.
Over the intervening years Mucklow has ridden out the ups and downs of the property market. A long term strategy of maintaining a portfolio of properties with potential for long term rental and capital growth is balanced against a short term strategy which is more opportunistic, acquiring when values are low and disposing when investment values are more robust.
The company is still very much a family business with the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of the company’s founders holding shares.
