Keith Bradshaw’s Stratford-upon-Avon-based Listers motor group is close to a turnover of £650 million.
Profits at Listers are down to £5.5 million to March 2012, compared with £10.1 the previous year, but the company has been investing heavily in new dealerships.
In 2011 Listers Skoda Coventry started trading, while Volkswagen and Hyundai dealerships in Leamington Spa were added to the Listers portfolio as well as Volkswagen and Skoda authorised repairers. Listers also acquired Land Rover and Seat dealerships in Droitwich.
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Despite disruption to the supply of some brands caused by the Japanese tsunami, sales rose by 3.6 per cent.
Keith Bradshaw is chairman and 50 per cent owner of Listers – the largest privately owned motor group in England.
Listers is proudly independent, so while the big dealer groups slug it out to deliver shareholder value, Listers – as an independent family company – can rise above it all.
With more than 40 outlets across the country, Listers is worth at least £90 million and employs 1450 people. It is co-owned by Keith Bradshaw’s partner and public face of the group, Terry Lister, who founded the group in 1979.
Listers runs an extensive portfolio of award-winning franchises, including BMW, Audi, Honda, Toyota, Lexus, Mercedes and Volkswagen. The company also has a franchise for Volkswagen commercials.
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Keith Bradshaw is 69 and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. After qualifying as an accountant in Birmingham in 1966 he attended Handsworth Technical College. He spent time in West Africa before returning aged 30 and setting up a number of private companies, the foremost of which was BP Nursing Homes which became Takare PLC and which was sold to BUPA in 1998 for close on £300 million. When it was sold it was the largest operator of its type in Europe, employing 14,000 people.
He is non-executive chairman of property company Nurton Developments, run day-to-day by his son David who is managing director. His brother, also David, is Nurton’s construction and technical director. The company has a policy of bringing unloved and neglected buildings back to life.
Nurton has become one of the region’s leading developers of industrial, office and mixed use retail and leisure space. It has a residential offshoot - Urban Cube. Nurton Developments has instructed Jones Lang LaSalle to work on the planning of a multimillion pound community in Burton – Branston Locks – which will create 2,850 new homes.
Nurton’s flagship property is the landmark Two Colmore Square, which has undergone a £25 million transformation and which attracted the head office of floor cleaner giant Vax, which has taken much of the fifth floor on a 10-year lease.
Keith Bradshaw is also a limited partner in Alchemy, with a portfolio of more than 25 varied venture capital investments, and also Laney Headstock, which produces a range of musical instruments and sound reinforcement products, and has recently taken virtually all production offshore to China.