Premier Modular Group – of which Premier Modular Limited is a wholly-owned subsidiary – announced on 9th August that it had attracted a new investor.
MML Capital Partners has taken an equal majority shareholding with the incumbent, Cabot Square Capital, with a minority shareholding continuing to be held by Premier Modular’s leadership team.
This move puts Premier in prime position to accelerate its growth even faster and to reinforce its best-in-class service provision.
Premier Modular has grown from a business established back in the 1950s to become the UK’s market-leader in providing bespoke, premium, modular rental, leasing and permanent buildings. It is Europe’s first, non-financial company to gain ESG accreditation and is on target to be carbon zero by 2035.
Premier Modular delivers space to many and various sectors – each with specific needs – across the UK and northern Europe including: hospitals, schools, life science, justice, defence, laboratories, welfare buildings, offices, data centres, retail and other commercial applications.
Having enjoyed many years of record growth, in the last four years alone, Premier’s rental fleet has expanded by 50% and this new investment by MML will fuel Premier Modular’s ambitions to make world-class facilities more widely available in its domestic and European markets.
Investor, Cabot Square Capital has seen a robust return on its investment since it acquired Premier Modular in 2021 – all driven by growth in turnover from both the public and private sectors.
“Premier Modular is already a well-run company, as seen in the great performance in recent years,” says Andrew Honan, managing partner (infrastructure) at MML. “But it’s Premier Modular’s long-term growth that we are really excited about. Fundamentally, we are seeing a big societal change in how we build our infrastructure in the UK and globally – a focus on being closer to the user and dealing with shorter term changes in societal needs. In that context, Premier is at the vanguard of enabling this change in sustainable and affordable ways.”
Keith Maddin, partner, Cabot Square Capital said: “Premier is a highly successful business and has built a first-class track record of providing sustainable infrastructure solutions. Working with the Premier Modular team for two years now, it’s their culture of delivering excellence in tight timeframes which keeps them competitive. That’s playing its part in the company’s expansion both at home and in Europe with the launch of Premier Modular BV. We look forward to continuing to be involved in the next stage of its growth alongside management and MML Capital Partners.”
Modular construction and modular buildings are seen as the future because they solve several challenges the traditional building industry is facing regarding sustainability, skills shortages, safety and building quality. These factors are even more important for clients who have temporary building needs as opposed to the 60-year plus lifetime of our permanent modular solutions or indeed traditional construction.
“There has been ample demonstration over the last 30 years that manufacturing a building using lean techniques, with precision, in a factory and then transporting it to site, makes for a higher quality building. That also translates to more sustainable buildings because they’re designed and built using a more efficient, faster and safer process compared with how traditional building sites operate. We now understand the true benefits of modular manufacture and rental within the circular economy, demonstrating that offsite manufacture is a more sustainable construction methodology,” says David Harris, Premier Modular Group’s CEO.
Few modular companies compare with Premier Modular’s capability to operate at continually accelerating pace and scale. Even fewer companies combine Premier’s technical expertise with such a significant rental fleet and strong balance sheet.
“Being customer-centric, for us means that every part of our process – including how our state-of-the-art factories are set up – responds to each customer’s challenges whether that’s us understanding their needs regarding space, programme or configuration. That’s what sustains our new business pipeline and keeps all our factories busy. However, without doubt, it’s our people who make this business what it is,” says David Harris. “One of the reasons why we’re able to continue our strong growth is because we anticipated the skilled trades market tightening, so we invested in our apprenticeship and training programmes. Many people prefer to invest in their skills with the long-term prospect of working close-to-home rather than away on building sites.
“MML’s investment means we now continue to grow our best-in-class fleet, expand the range of funding structures we offer our clients, and accelerate our expansion into Europe following client demand,” says David Harris. “The combination of financial firepower and infrastructure expertise will be invaluable as we continue to drive Premier forward.
“But it’s particularly satisfying that every day, we’re building a better tomorrow which will be easier to repurpose or recycle for generations to come.”
