Plowman Craven passes reins to its Employees

Leading UK surveyors, Plowman Craven has announced it has become an Employee Owned Trust (EOT) on 23 March 2021, following the sale of investors’ shares to its employees. Plowman Craven has since joined the likes of Arup, Mott MacDonald, Black & Veatch and Triton Construction by moving to an employee ownership business model. 

Announcing the EOT, Andy Molloy, MD of Plowman Craven said: “As our continuous success and growth of the next 50 years rests on our expert employees, we decided to make the leap into a fully employee-owned era. The EOT gives us the opportunity to unlock value within the business without losing everything that makes Plowman Craven so good at what we do. Over the last 18 months we considered various business model alternatives but our highly agile and robust performance through the pandemic convinced us that maintaining innovative independence was our favoured option“ 

 

The move will enable the technical consultancy’s staff to become more invested financially and emotionally in the business’ future trajectory, as well as benefit from the generous tax allowances that exist for profit sharing under the EOT regulations. Plowman Craven will create further employee consultancy groups within the business in the coming months to provide additional avenues for employees to be more engaged with the decision-making processes of the company.

 

Freeths advised Plowman Craven on setting up its EOT and the acquisition of the investors’ shares.

 

Freeths said: “We enjoyed working with Andy and the company’s investors on this project and look forward to supporting the company on the next stage of its growth. We have been advising on an increasing number of EOT transactions which provide a tax free exit for founders/investors and offer an interesting alternative to a trade sale or private equity investment”