Page 34 - Yorkshire Rich List 2017

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Duncan Davidson £148m
2016
Position: 38= £148m
Duncan Davidson is the founder of the York-based construction firm Persimmon plc. He set the business up in 1972 and expanded it into one of the UK’s biggest housebuilders
Persimmon is one of the UK’s largest housebuilding businesses. Duncan Davidson, 76, and his family hold a stake in the business worth almost £130m. He is the grandson of the 15th Duke of Norfolk and was educated at Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire. He was expelled before his A Levels for running a bookies. At the age of nine he was a pageboy at the Queen’s coronation. He joined the army in 1959 and served in the Royal Scots Greys for four years.
When he came out of the army in 1963 he joined the housebuilding firm George Wimpey where he went on to manage their construction projects in Iran. In 1965 he founded his own housebuilder – Ryedale Homes – which he sold to Comben Homes for £1m.
He founded Persimmon – named a er a Derby winner – in 1972 and built it up to be one of the biggest housebuilders in the UK. He retired as
its executive chairman in 2006 but remains life president. Persimmon started life as a Yorkshire company, but quickly expanded to cover East Anglia, the Midlands and the south west. It floated in 1985 and built up its coverage of the rest of the country through acquisitions including Ideal Homes, the Sco ish housebuilding interests of John Laing, Westbury and Beazer Homes.
It’s a successful FTSE company turning over almost £3.2bn a year with pre-tax profits in 2016 of £782m compared to £638m the previous year. The trend continued in the first half of 2017, with nearly 8,000 homes completed for customers. Duncan Davidson lives in the Grade II listed Lilburn Tower near Wooler in Northumberland which he bought with the proceeds of the Ryedale sale. The Elizabethan-style mansion was built
in the 1820s, replacing a ruined 15th century manor house, and surrounded by a park and gardens. He also owns 20,000 acres of farmland in Northumberland.
He married Sarah in 1966 and they have four daughters.
FIRM FOUNDATIONS: Duncan Davidson built Per- simmon into one of the biggest housebuilders in the UK.
2016
Position: 46= £120m
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Chris Rea OBE £130m
Chris Rea is founder and managing director
of award-winning Rotherham-based seal manufacturer AESSEAL which is the UK’s last remaining mechanical seal manufacturer and the fourth largest seal manufacturer in the world.
The group has grown from eight employees to 1,700 in 30 years. Exports account for 90 per cent
of total production, and most of the company’s manufacturing, along with product and process development, is based in the UK. The company has wonseveralQueensAwardsfor Enterpriseand Sustainable Development. It was awarded a Queens Award for Enterprise and Innovation in 2016.
The company has customers in the oil and gas, pharmaceutical, mining, food and drink, power generation, automotive and metal processing industries. The business has grown through acquisition. In 2010 it acquired Bedford-based Ceetak Engineering Ltd and its subsidiary companies to create AES Pump. In 2013 it bought Cheshire operation AV Technology.
Ulster-born Chris Rea, 63, has a majority stake in the business worth at least £115m, with the rest
of the shares owned by private equity. In 2016 the operation declared profits of almost £20m on
a turnover of £151.7m. Mr Rea is also a minority shareholder and non-executive director of Port Talbot-based British Rototherm Group. He is a former Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year.
He moved from Northern Ireland to Yorkshire in 1975 a er completing an economics degree. He began making precision-engineered mechanical pump seals at a Rotherham workshop in 1981. The business now operates from nearly 230 locations in 104 countries including none manufacturing facilities and 58 repair sites. The USA accounts for more than a third of the company’s exports.
The company donated £50,000 to Sheffield Hallam University to encourage more women
in engineering. Mr Rea was appointed interim managing director of Leeds-based Surgical Innovations Group. He invested £1.6m in the firm before resigning in 2015.
He is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and holds an honorary doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University.
MAJORITY STAKE: Chris Rea, managing director of AESSEAL, the world’s fourth largest seal manufacturer.
34 the magazine TUESDAY NOVEMBER 28 2017
www.yorkshirepost.co.uk
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