Page 24 - Yorkshire Rich List 2017

2
8
Tony Bramall and family £210m
2016
Position: 26 £220m
Sheffield-based Tony Bramall is one of the best- known names in the British car dealership world. Now 81, he is still active in the motor retail business.
He paid £56m for General Electric’s 24.4 per cent share in the quoted dealership Lookers, scuppering a hostile takeover by rival Pendragon. A 10 million share sale in 2015 valued them at £102m. The Bramall family retains a 16 per cent interest in Lookers.
That was not Mr Bramall’s first windfall. In 2004 he made £76m when he sold his third share in car dealer CD Bramall to Pendragon. The deal was worth £230m in total. He had founded the company with a £1.5m investment in 1990.
Mr Bramall qualified as a chartered accountant in 1960. A er a spell as manager of a finance company he joined the family firm, Hamilton and Bramall. In 1967 he became managing director. A er years of acquisition and growth he renamed the group CD Bramall and sold it to Avis in 1987 for £94m.
Three years later he re-entered the motor
industry, se ing up the Sanderson Bramall Motor Group. He bought three dealerships back from Avis to form a £23m company. He acquired dealerships from Thri y Car Rental and the Skipper Group, and once again renamed the company CD Bramall. By 2002 he was turning over £1.4bn.
He then launched Bramall & Jones, starting with two Audi dealerships. A er building the company he sold its Volkswagen dealerships to Lookers and its Audi dealers to Jack Tordoff ’s JCT600. He has been a non-executive director of Lookers since 2006.
Two other family firms – Harrogate-based farming and horticultural business Winterquay and Bramall Properties – show net assets well in excess of £50m. Bramall Properties has carried out several commercial and residential developments and holds a portfolio of office and commercial property investments including a number in Leeds.
The Harrogate-based Tony Bramall Charitable Trust, set up in 1990, supports medical research and people with disabilities in the north of England.
NO SLOWING DOWN: Sheffield-based Tony Bramall is still active in the motor retail business at the age of 81.
3
0
Jeremy Pilkington and family £185m
2016
Position: 38= £148m
Jeremy Pilkington chairs the Harrogate-based plant and equipment hire operation VP. It’s a business that has a habit of posting record profits.
The year to March 2017 was no exception. Profits before tax leapt to almost £35m from £29.8m
the year before, while sales revenue grew nearly
20 per cent from £208.7m to £248.7m. Profits
from VP’s international division almost doubled. The business has invested nearly £60m in its rental fleet and has net assets of close to £140m. Dividends increased by 17 per cent during the year.
Mr Pilkington, 65, and his family trusts have a stake in the business worth well over £150m.
The company founded by Jeremy’s father
and grandfather goes back to the 1930s. In the 1950s the family moved to Australia, along with their engineering business and its 30 staff, but
as a safety net they set up Vibratory Roller and Plant Hire in Harrogate in 1954. The Australian business didn’t do well and four years later they returned. The development of the company was helped by the building of the first section of the M1 motorway.
It went public in 1973 as Vibroplant plc. Mr Pilkington joined the firm as a director in the late 70s when his father died of a heart a ack, aged 57. He became chairman in 1981 and was both chairman and chief executive between 1981 and 2004.
In 2000 the company pulled out of the volume plant hire business to concentrate on specialist equipment hire, changing its name to VP. The business now has six main operating divisions concentrating on rough terrain forkli trucks, safety equipment hire, trenching equipment, tool hire, trackside maintenance plant and oil and gas exploration equipment.
In 2012 VP bought two equipment rental operations from Balfour Bea y for £4m. The business is an acquisitive one and has added Higher Access, TR Group, Bukom Oilfield Services and Mr Cropper to its portfolio.
Mr Pilkington went to Rossall private school in Fleetwood before going to Carleton University in Canada and studying ecology at the University of California.
AIMING EVER HIRE: Jeremy Pilkington and his family trusts have a stake in VP worth well over £150m.
24 the magazine TUESDAY NOVEMBER 28 2017
www.yorkshirepost.co.uk
VISMEDIA