I had no idea St Modwen (owned by Blackstone) owned Trentham!
I've just bought a house off them last month. One of the strangest businesses I've ever had dealings with. Desperate to sell me an expensive house, but refusing to negotiate. Almost like they'd baked a profit margin into their model, and were completely ignorant toward things not going to plan.
I managed to get some blood out of the stone in the end, but should really have walked away. Beautiful house and had it professionally snagged. Even the snagger said it's one of the best he's seen, real high quality and a very small list. But whilst your bog standard Persimmons of this world will cut corners and then budget for the fallout (I bought 2 new builds off them, and although their houses are a bit shoddy, you just walk up to the site manager he'll send some people round to do pretty much whatever you want), getting to snagging done is like pulling teeth.
They've designed and built these beautiful houses, and put a lot of thought into the design of the area alongside the council. No dodgy stuff here. It's an old RAF base and they've made it a fantastic place to live. But they seem so bad at business, they're furiously selling off land to other developers because their weird business practices are preventing them from getting a good return. They're doing all this during a housing crisis, where their core product should be in high demand.
That's the problem with these private equity investments. They buy businesses to milk profits out of, and then flog them on. I suspect that's why so many decisions at Alton Towers may seem bizarre to the average consumer, but make perfect sense to the equity fund. It doesn't matter if the business crashes and burns once you sell it on, the long-term future isn't your problem.
