Wed 5 Nov 2008
...with Rob Burnham
It may not be the best economic climate in which to start a new business, but Michael Dineen meets Rob Burnham - a man who is doing just that.Commenting on the post-squeeze state of the housing industry, a recent interviewee in this series said: "Don't employ anyone under forty because they won't have experienced the working conditions of the l990s."
There's nothing mischievous in the inclusion of thirty-year-old Rob Burnham this month for he seems to have packed a great deal of experience into his relatively short spell in the industry.
Today he heads a small, not to say embryonic, company called Milestone which was among the last to benefit from generously supportive bank loans before the credit squeeze.
But, immediately before that, he was among the youngest managing directors in a national house building company, David Wilson Homes. He had learned a great deal in the last few easy years - and today he is adding a working knowledge of hardship to his overall education.
It all came about because Wilson was taken over by Barratt and Rob Burnham decided he couldn't make the switch when the capi at Barratt made him an offer he could refuse - because, to be absolutely fair, he had the prospect of Milestone looming on his not-too-distant horizon.
To describe the boom years which have just come to an end as "easy" gives the lie to Rob Burnham's hard work equipping himself to deal with them, for he chose to be a working student from the outset at the age of sixteen, beginning modestly with a building studies course in week one of which he was spotted by a lecturer who told him a local firm was looking for a trainee quantity surveyor.
And while he was working for this firm, William Davies, he studied at college and, being short of cash he took a job as a waiter too.
The job network was working in Rob's favour even before he was twenty, for after three years with Davies one of their sub contractors gave his name to David Wilson Homes who duly approached him while recruiting trainee surveyors.
Overnight he moved from the humble status of a weekly wage earner to that of a salaried employee driving a company car. However young Burnham was not too overawed to hold out for a better deal than that. He told them he wanted to read for a university degree after his HND while working for them.
They agreed, probably because nobody had ever asked for this before, and he duly achieved a two-one honours degree in Building Surveying.
"It took me three years with one whole day and one evening attending college, plus a lot of man-hours study at home; it was very hard work, but I wanted that degree very badly so I stuck at it."
And all of this while making steady progress onward and upward with the day job! Which makes me wonder if today's armies of undergraduates may perhaps be a little under-employed.
Initially Burnham was employed by David Wilson's East Midlands office, but soon he was on the hoof, promoted to group surveyor, helping out in under-performing regional offices as well, at the age of 23, as training younger members of the staff.
Then a new MD in the company spotted his talent for hard work and persuaded him to move to the south east - as a commercial manager, based in Horsham. By the age of 24 he had achieved his first directorship, then Operations Director at 27 and managing director of the south east division at 28 - building 350 units a year and producing an impressive £70 million turnover.
David Wilson had always eschewed the London scene, but this did not deter Burnham from seeing into production two large schemes in Kennington and Wimbledon involving the creation of 240 apartments.
By now he had a team including seven directors and sixty staffers in Horsham, a town he had grown to love. Life must have seemed pretty good.
Too good. The axe was about to fall, and it took the form of the sell-out by David Wilson Homes to Barratt.
A senior Barratt executive sent for him and, well prepared, Burnham began telling him about his plans.
"He very kindly stopped me, mid-flow, and told me he was going to shut my office. That took a while to sink in, but the following Monday morning I had to go into my office and tell everyone this was the end of the line. It was horrible."
To be fair most employees, including Burnham were offered alternative jobs. His own option was to join Barratt's Thames Valley division in Maidenhead as deputy managing director.
It was not a bad deal, he admits, but he was somewhat soured by the experience and was already considering escape from large company work to something much smaller.
During his later David Wilson days he'd been approached by an investment company which was searching for someone to run a new property development firm and to take a slice of its equity. He had turned them down because of his expected and clearly defined career path with David Wilson.
Perhaps now, post-takeover, it would be politic to give the investment company a ring? He did but the job had been offered to someone else. However to his surprise they said they may be prepared to start another housing development company, would he produce a business plan.
Evidently they liked Burnham's plan and in September 2007 Milestone was created while the market was still buoyant.
It was not buoyant enough to keep the investors afloat, however. "To cut a long story short they developed funding difficulties and we agreed to buy them out."
"We" consisted of Rob and his co-directors Ed Cookson and Andrew Atkins, joint holders of a minority shareholding.
"It's been difficult and expensive, and it has involved hard bargaining and brainstorming, but we have come out the other side with a company and two valuable building sites."
With brutal candour he adds: "We have no finished product, no show house and no track record. On the face of it we are a high risk company." But it is only fair for me to add that the team has a good enough track record to satisfy the fussiest financiers.
And the track record is on its way.
At the height - or should it be the depth? - of the credit squeeze when the pessimistic Mr Darling is doing his best to undermine national confidence, Milestone were able to report two reservations off plan.
It may not sound like mega-bucks to the fat cats of the industry, but for a minnow struggling against strong adverse currents, the sale of two houses for £365,000 and £710,000 seems suspiciously like an upturn.
And Milestone will not have to sell off plan for much longer. This month sees a finished show house ready for inspection.
Meanwhile the word modesty is writ large on everyone's desk. They may be operating from a splendid Victorian mansion in a smart part of a smart town like Horsham, but they are keeping the overheads to a minimum by rolling up their sleeves and cleaning the carpets, windows and furniture themselves.
Posted by Michael Dineen
in Andrew Atkins, Barratt Homes, David Wilson Homes, Ed Cookson, One to One, Rob Burnham on Wed 5 Nov 2008
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