Legal & General has appointed a new chief financial officer to its modular housing business.
Lance Gillett will take over from Stephen Price, who will retire from the business on 30 June.
The appointment follows ongoing losses in the modular housing business, which is reliant on funding from Legal & General Capital Investments.
Gillett was previously CFO at national building products group Customade, with prior roles at Masco UK Window Group and Bristan Group.
Price has been at L&G Modular Homes for three years. Initially, as a strategic planning consultant, he developed a financial programme and budget. Later as CFO he led the finance and programme management team under chief executive Rosie Toogood. Both Price and Toogood previously worked at Rolls-Royce.
L&G Modular Homes has major sites in Selby, North Yorkshire, and Lockleaze, Bristol, where it has secured consent to develop homes produced at its factory in Sherburn-in-Elmet.
The business was launched in 2016, with a vision to produce 3,500 factory-built homes a year. However, it has struggled to scale and turn a profit, racking up £30.9m in pretax losses for the year ended 31 December 2019, on top of £20.7m in losses the previous year, according to financial reports released last November.
During 2019, the business received £20m from parent company Legal & General Homes Holdings, compared to £23.2m a year earlier. The financial statements added that Legal & General Capital Investments had confirmed it would support the company for at least 12 months from the date of signing the financial statements.
In February this year, the modular business announced plans to expand, adding 350 new employees this year. These roles will be across all areas of the business, from factory floor to design and development.
A spokesman for L&G Modular Homes said: “We want to thank Stephen for the significant contribution he has made during his time with the modular business and wish him a happy retirement. We welcome Lance to our growing modular business.
“We are now ready to make our vision a reality with delivery to Selby, Bristol and other pipeline projects, creating over 500 new homes in the next year.”
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