Miller chairman Keith Miller said that the acquisition was part of the group鈥檚 plan to become a national player. The group builds homes primarily in Scotland but also in the North-west, the Midlands and the North-east.
Miller builds about 200 homes a year in the North-east, compared with Cussins鈥� 500 in the region.
Keith Miller said of the North-east market: 鈥淎ll the main housebuilders are there and the market is even. We don鈥檛 want to be in the South-east where it is big peaks and troughs.鈥�
He said he also wanted to expand the group鈥檚 North-west and Midlands operations and that the company had 拢100m to spend and could borrow another 拢250m.
Cussins chairman Peter Cussins said of the deal: 鈥淐ontinuing investor apathy towards small capitalisation stocks has restricted both the share price of Cussins and the ability of Cussins鈥� management to grow the business.鈥�
One banker active in the sector said the deal was one of many in the offing as smaller construction businesses failed to make an impact on the stock exchange. He said that he had talked to half-a-dozen interested parties in the past couple of months, although no clear proposals had emerged.
The price that Miller paid for Cussins represents a premium of 40.4% above the closing price of Cussins鈥� shares on 12 July 1999, the day before Cussins revealed it was in takeover discussions.
In 1998, Cussins recorded pre-tax profit of 拢2.5m on a turnover of 拢35.2m.
In the same year, Miller recorded pre-tax profit of 拢2.4m on turnover of 拢73.7m. It completed 1064 homes. The agreed bid for Cussins was Miller鈥檚 first successful venture into the stock market. It had previously tried to buy publicly quote City Site Estate in December last year. More recently, it attempted to take over Cala, the Edinburgh-based housebuilder that was bought out by its management.
