Contractor sold residential arm three years ago to private equity firm

Kier has brought back a former boss of the housing business it sold to private equity three years ago as a managing director at its property business.

David Bridges was in charge of Kier Living when Kier sold it to Terra Firma for £110m in summer 2021 under chief executive Andrew Davies’s strategy to reduce the firm’s £436m debt pile.

It was renamed Tilia Homes with Bridges leaving at the end of 2021 befoe he later joined Homes England where he was most recently chief investment officer. He has previously held senior roles at McCarthy Stone, Linden Homes and developer SEGRO.

david bridges

David Bridges was in charge of Kier Living at the time it was sold in 2021

But he is returning to Kier next month as a managing director at its property business which develops land for residential, industrial and logistics and office schemes.

Leigh Thomas, group managing director for Kier Property, said: “In David’s new role, he will sit on our Property Board and take overall responsibility for the delivery of all our residential projects.”

The firm has land with a residential pipeline of around 4,500 units of which 1,000 are affordable.