19 April 2017
Omar Group Limited (“Omar Group”), Britain’s premier park home and luxury lodge manufacturer, is delighted to announce a significant investment in the business from Rutland Partners (“Rutland”), a London-based private equity firm. The investment will be used to fund further expansion in the growing park home and lodge sector.
Under the leadership of Dean Westmoreland, Omar Group has more than doubled sales over the past three years and created over 250 new jobs. The business has built a cohesive value proposition to the sector and encompasses four distinct and respected brands: Omar Park & Leisure Homes, Wessex Unique Lodges & Park Homes, Omar Park Development Services (OPDS) and Boutique Lodges, Holidays by Omar.
In conjunction with the transaction, Paul Pleszko will retire as Chairman after 40 years with the business. Paul Pleszko commented: “Omar has been an enormous part of my life for as long as I can remember and I was honoured to replace my father as Chairman 28 years ago. I am very proud of our achievements in recent years and will be keeping a close association with the business. I wish Dean and the team at Omar all the very best for the future”.
Group Chief Executive, Dean Westmoreland, continues to head the business along with an experienced senior management team who, with the support of Rutland Partners, will continue to pursue further organic and inorganic growth initiatives. Dean Westmoreland commented: “We are all very excited as we enter the next stage in Omar Group’s growth strategy; we are now better placed than ever to continue our expansion in this exciting and dynamic market. Our luxury holiday lodges offer an aspirational experience for the UK holiday market, and our park homes offer much needed, single-storey, age-appropriate accommodation for the over 50’s looking to downsize. I look forward to leading the group in the next stage of its development and have no doubt that we, as a business, will benefit from the contribution Rutland Partners will make to our endeavours”.
The funding follows an exciting year for the business during which Omar Group opened a £1.1m factory extension and was named as one of the London Stock Exchange Group’s 1,000 Companies to Inspire (both the Britain and Europe reports). Omar Group was also recently placed at No 45 in the Sunday Times’ 18th annual Profit Track 100 and included in the Financial Times, FT 1000, a special report on the fastest growing companies in Europe.
David Wardrop, Partner at Rutland commented, “We are very excited to have completed our investment in Omar. Omar has a great product offering with a leading reputation for quality, customer service and innovation and is well positioned for future growth. We are backing an excellent management team, led by Dean Westmoreland, who have a proven track record and we look forward to working with them to further develop the business over the coming years”.
Duff & Phelps led by Dafydd Evans acted as financial advisor, Freeths LLP led by Karl Jansen served as legal advisor to Omar Group and Mishcon de Reya provided legal services to Dean Westmoreland and the management team.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.