HomeServe set to enter top 100 companies after £3.3bn value revealed
HomeServe, which employs more than 1,500 at its head office in Walsall, is set to become a member of the prestigious FTSE 100 by the end of the year.
The company's UK chief executive Greg Reed revealed to a business breakfast event at Wolverhampton's The Way Youth Zone yesterday that the home emergency repairs company now had a capital value of £3.3 billion.
It means it will qualify for Footsie – the Financial Times stock exchange index – membership as one of the top 100 companies on the London Stock Exchange with the highest market capitalisation.
American-born Mr Reed, who joined HomeServe in 2012 as chief marketing officer after a career in banking, outlined to the invited audience at The Way on how he had masterminded the turnaround of the company, which has its headquarters at Cable Drive, after it was hit with a £30.6m fine by the Financial Conduct Authority – its largest-ever retail fine - in 2014 over mis-selling issues, lost £1bn in market captialisation and made 1,000 redundancies.
"I am very proud to be in the Midlands," said Mr Reed, who was recently named Europe's most progressive leader in the 2017 Talent Unleashed Awards.
"The people in Walsall are lovely and will do anything for you. It is a great place to have a business and a great place for a global headquarters."
He said that HomeServe was a great place to work and 95 per cent of its staff were proud to tell people that they worked there.
He explained how the company now made efforts to ensure working at HomeServe was fun and ensure all staff realised they were important.
Mr Reed said that the focus of the business in the UK was now firmly on its team of hard working engineers on the frontline who he described as "1,500 guys in vans fixing toilets".
"My engineers will fix 1.2 million issues this year - that's an awful lot of repairs," he added.
Mr Reed said that he was proud of HomeServe's support for the community in Walsall and its support for 38 charities including the Midland Langar Seva Society that provides meals for the homeless and sponsorship of Walsall FC.
*HomeServe is holding its annual general meeting this morning at the Hyatt Regency Birmingham.
The company, originally set up as a joint venture with South Staffordshire Water in 1993, has more than two million customers in the UK.
It began with 20 people and now has 3,500 at five sites across the UK and operates in 16 countries with 8.3 million customers in total.
