Elivia Homes celebrates a transformational year 

South Coast Property Award winner Elivia Homes has every reason to celebrate this year as it commemorates the one-year anniversary of its new brand and relationship with Octopus Investments that secured several hundred million pounds in growth capital. Following a transformational year for the business, we talk to CEO Chris Chiles and COO Kamal Singh Grewal about the journey that led to it to being crowned ‘Housebuilder of the Year’.

From the launch of Elivia Homes following the coming together of the Vanderbilt and Crayfern businesses, to the acquisition of Millwood Designer Homes, and most recently the purchase of the residential land portfolio of Seaward Properties, we discover the company’s ambitious plans for future organic growth and strategic expansion through M&A. 

A transformational year for Elivia Homes 

In April 2022, sister companies Vanderbilt Homes and Crayfern Homes came together under the unified Elivia Homes brand, developing across Surrey, West Sussex, Berkshire, Hampshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire. A new business plan was conceived to double in size by 2027, to a £250m annual turnover business. 

A compelling brand proposition, ‘Elevated Living by Design’ was derived – reflecting a long-standing culture and focus on design-led, quality-built and environmentally conscious homes in the most sought after locations across the South East. This is underpinned by Elivia and its team’s shared set of values – quality, expertise, integrity, passion, progress and sustainable. 

Acquisition Growth 

In May 2022, Elivia’s Group Executive Team of CEO Chris Chiles, COO Kamal Singh Grewal and CFO Iain Brown, led a successful exit, resulting in the acquisition by funds advised by Octopus Investments; providing a clear runway for Elivia’s ambitious expansion plans. 

Chris explained: “The investment has provided us with a springboard for growth, and it’s an opportunity we have taken with both hands – allowing us to grow in our Central and Southern regions through an active land and targeted business acquisition programme, digital competitiveness, commitment to skills and training for our teams and a focus on sustainable development for our communities.” 

“What’s more, it’s allowed us to move forward on our five-year growth plan – and we were delighted to report significant turnover growth to £118m in the period to June 2022, underpinned by a materially strengthened balance sheet.” 

Alongside land acquisitions, targeted M&A has been utilised for geographic expansion, and as a competitive tool to bring in further capability and unlock strategic advantages. 

With the backing of Octopus, the company announced the successful acquisition of award-winning, Kent-based Millwood Designer Homes in January 2023. The business, previously owned by Places for People, develops across East Sussex and Kent with an enviable land pipeline, providing long-term future cashflow certainty for the Elivia group. 

COO Kamal Singh Grewal, commented on the importance of this strategic expansion. “Millwood is a great fit for Elivia Homes in terms of product alignment, attractive geography, and reputational fit. Adding a third region also furnishes us with critical scale to reach more customers, and unlock efficiencies across land buying, operations and sales. Our Group operation provides strategic direction and aligns regional teams on best-practice, with data-driven insights to improve each step of the development process and customer experience. Our M&A track record reinforces our transaction credibility which has resonated with the market, helping to originate further expansion opportunities across the south-east.” 

Hot on the heels of this success, in March Elivia added a further 1,000 units to its strategic land pipeline, with a gross development value (GDV) of £500m, through a deal with Seaward Properties. The move contributes 11 new sites of 20 to 200 units, across West Sussex, Hampshire and Dorset. The addition of this portfolio further cements Elivia’s in-house M&A credentials and reflects its continued investment in strategic land and an expertise in land promotion and planning. 

Commenting on the deal, Chris said: “This exciting investment provides us with long-term growth and stability. Through this partnership, we will build a further 1,000 new homes; a significant volume for any housebuilder, catapulting us towards our growth aspirations – we will triple in size by 2027, to a £350m turnover business delivering 1,000 design-led and sustainable homes per year. The new portfolio also sees our land pipeline grow to a GDV of over £2 billion. Alongside this, we continue to actively invest in strategic, subject-to-planning-permission and consented sites; in the last year alone, in addition to our corporate transactions, we added a further 18 sites, contributing 1300 homes and £600m GDV.” 

Innovation

The Elivia Team has created this fascinating growth story by strengthening its talent pool, increasing headcount by 65% across all levels and by investing in differentiating capabilities. 

Kamal elaborated: “We’re focussed on innovation from the ground up; we were early adopters of low carbon technologies, and we exceed building regulations when it comes to the energy efficiency of our homes. As part of this, we have launched a considered sustainability strategy that roadmaps our path to delivering homes with net zero operational carbon emissions. We will also half our business’ emissions by 2030, whilst maintaining a steadfast commitment to delivering biodiversity net gain. This is in line with our own and Octopus’ core values of sustainability and bringing benefits to the wider communities in which we operate.” 

“We take a digital-first approach and have developed a state-of-the-art management system known as the Elivia Development Management Platform (EDMP) to enable efficient scale and innovation across the group. This fully integrated, proprietary housebuilding platform, helps govern every stage of the business – from land acquisition to servicing our customers post completion.” 

Customer and industry recognition 

Despite a year of exciting substantial change at Elivia Homes, the business has never taken its eye off its core focus of delivering high-quality developments and exceptional service to its customers. Elivia has been recognised by independent market research company Inhouse Research, achieving a Gold Award for customer service across all three of its regions. This demonstrates a consistent high level of service with a customer recommendation score of over 90%, based on feedback throughout 2022. Particularly impressive is seeing such robust demand for Elivia’s product, with several sites achieving excellent off-plan sales owing to elevations and layouts resonating strongly with their design-conscious customers. 

Chris reflects proudly on Elivia’s successful year. “2022/23 has been a transformative year for Elivia Homes, and one which has allowed us to achieve unprecedented strategic milestones ahead of plan. We are thrilled therefore that following these achievements, we have been recognised in the South Coast Property Awards as Housebuilder of the Year. To also walk away with ‘Development of the Year’ for Blake’s View in Lavant (pictured top of page) and ‘Sustainable Development of the Year’ for Hawkin’s Field in Fittleworth was the icing on the cake. We are delighted to have been recognised for two outstanding developments in such strategically important parts of our business. We have also been shortlisted for a further four industry awards which acknowledges our homes, developments & leadership.