Building supplier Lords hands out 1m shares to staff

Building materials distributer Lords Group is set to hand out 2,105 shares each to 485 employees just months after its successful stock market listing.

Lords, which listed on London’s AIM market in July at 95p per share with a £150million valuation, will offer the shares to all employees who were at the firm at least six months prior to the float.

Lords shares are currently trading at 137.5p, having risen by more than 30 per cent since the initial public offering.

The share incentive plan was announced at the IPO in ‘recognition’ of employee efforts and ‘the importance of ensuring that all employees are well motivated and identify closely with the success of the group’.

The 1,020,925 shares will be places in a trust on behalf of the staff who must stay at the firm and hold the stock for at least three years.

Application has been made for the shares to be admitted to trading on AIM, which is expected to take place at 8am on 6 October.

Lords CEO Shanker Patel said: ‘We are a people business and the future success of the Group relies on their continued hard work and commitment.’

The distributor of specialist building, plumbing, heating and DIY goods raised £52million at IPO.

The firm announced this week it had swung to a first-half profit £4.5million, up from a loss of £300,000 in the first half of 2020, as revenues increased from £124million to £179million.

Lords aims to almost double turnover to £500million by 2024 from £288million currently.

At the same time, Patel and his team aim to increase the net return on sales from ‘edging towards 5 per cent’ to the 6 per cent-7 per cent enjoyed by larger operators such as Travis Perkins.