Business Executive Of The Year 1984 - The Journal

From bread to bricks - a starker contrast of interests between the first North East Business Executive of the Year and the second, Peter Cussins, would be hard to imagine. But the judges' decision was well received.

What the two did share was an effectively low-key approach to management. Many top executives are trained accountants. Peter was a banking economist who decided to create wealth more visibly.

It is now 37 years since Peter turned to building. He was with merchant bankers Hawtin and Partners when he decided, at 22, to follow his father Philip's footsteps. Philip had been a builder in Newcastle since 1922.

When a heart attack forced Philip's retirement, Hawtin bought his firm, Cussins Contractors, selling it on to Teesside housebuilder Moore & Cartwright. Later Philip joined the board of son Peter's maiden company, Lemmington.

In 1974 doubling oil prices ended Britain's post-war housing boom. But Lemmington sub-contracted extensively and, by 1977, was showing profits of pounds 31,000 by its build of houses, sheltered accommodation and commercial property. It had investments too.

It evolved into Cussins Property Group. When that floated on the stock market in 1981, Peter and his family took a pounds 3m stake and Peter overnight became the North East's newest millionaire. Local public-sector pension funds were among 15 City institutions taking around 75% of the 1.4m shares.

The group, employing 130, had sales nearing pounds 4m, pre-tax gains of pounds 470,000. Peter at 32 enjoyed acclaim for running such a vigorous listed enterprise, and for having built it within 10 years to a point profit nearing those of benchmarkers Bellway and Leech.

Profits hit pounds 1.25m in 1982, then pounds 1.3m while rivals struggled. During three years of recession, Cussins achieved further gains.

The Journal's City editor of the time speculated that Cussins - "arguably the most exciting small housebuilding company in Britain" - might become the next Barratt. Its fewer than 400 shareholders must have felt gratified. How? By three-prong attack. Peter avoided large land banks. He built houses mainly in the North East, and where good profit margins existed. Also, unlike volume builders erecting houses in their thousands for first-time buyers, Cussins built maybe 200 homes a year, and in the higher price brackets for second or third-time buyers. Peter's stake in the firm by mid-1983, was pounds 4.58m.

His commercial landmarks included Derwent Shopping Centre, put up after Consett steelworks closed, the Denmark Shopping Centre in South Shields and development around the BBC headquarters at Fenham in Newcastle.

In the year of his award Cussins opened a London office, whose many developments ranged from a shopping centre at Peckham - where Peter's loyal Geordie following of artisans camped on site for 18 months - to offices in Edinburgh New Town's Queen Street development.

Peter, like his father, upheld standards by giving job security not pay-off at the earliest, which was then widespread. He became Business Executive of the Year at 34 against finalists who included John Hall and Peter Vardy, both subsequent winners. Peter saw the award as "a tremendous boost for the men on the sites".

Shares worth 82p each on flotation were nudging 260p by then. Judges said: "The ability to earn profit through good and bad times is the acid test of business. On that score Peter Cussins was chosen."

It was not bad times but fickle times that ended Cussins Property Group. By the early 1990s, City attitudes changed as property values slumped. Ironically it was property in the South-East that was worst affected.

Big institutional investors such as pension funds scrambled among the dotcom boom and other 10-minute wonders for instant returns, disregarding now many steady but smaller firms. Investment capital dried up. When Miller Homes of Edinburgh, Britain's biggest privately owned housebuilder, bid for Cussins in 1999, Peter was not overjoyed. But shareholder interests take priority over sentiment.

The pounds 24m offer was accepted. Miller too represented quality, and wanted a housing presence in the North East, where it was already involved in the rebirth of Newcastle's Quayside, Cussins had built about 15,000 homes in the region by then.

But as they say, you can't keep a good man down. After six months' "gardening leave" Peter launched PIC Homes, fellow directors including ex-colleagues. Initial builds included one at Greenside, situated beside a putting green and a £7m development near Peter's Belsay home.

In 2003 PIC Homes became Cussins Ltd, which today operates from Belsay, his home village with Peter's son Jabin as land director. Cussins builds in Northumberland and Tyne and Wear, modern executive homes and apartments, traditional family homes, and homes within refurbished buildings. Cussins is also in a joint venture with Adamson Developments called Regent Homes.