Homes operator plans to boost turnover to £18m

Jan 7 2009 by Karen Dent, The Journal

A CARE homes operator is planning to treble the number of sites it runs and boost its annual turnover from around £3.6m to £18m by 2010.

The Helen McArdle Group (HMC), which sold 24 care homes for £100m at the end of 2004, moved back into the market last year. The Gateshead group now has five homes and is about to open five more and plans for a further five in 2010, creating hundreds of jobs as it does so.

Mark McArdle, managing director of the group which also runs the seven-strong Kids 1st Nursery chain, said the company returned to the care home sector because it still had plenty to offer.

“We felt there was still lots of opportunity, we felt we were good at it. After selling the business, we acquired some fantastic sites,” he said.

“We opened in January this year and we have five sites. We are going to do five next year at Cramlington, Fenham, Redcar, Morpeth and Consett.”

The group is investing £4m in each of the new build homes, which will each create around 70 to 80 jobs.

The care home business has an annual turnover of around £3.6m and Mr McArdle predicts that will rise to £10m next year and £18m in 2010. The nursery side’s annual turnover stands at £4m and Mr McArdle is confident of increasing that to £5m next year and £6m in 2010.

HMC employs 200 people in its nursery business and has 150 staff at its care homes, which are all based in the region.

Mr McArdle said: “With the care homes and the nurseries, we don’t plan to go out of the North East. We think our strength is our local knowledge.

“We’ve got seven nurseries now. We are probably going to consolidate all seven. They are large nurseries with more than 100 places each.”

The original 24 care homes in the group were bought by London-based Bondcare. At the time, Mr McArdle told The Journal that he decided to sell because he feared the business was becoming too large and corporate, removing it from his business’ family-run ethos.

The group was originally started more than 20 years ago by Helen McArdle and remains a family concern.

Mr McArdle’s brother Daniel is in charge of estates and property and his sister Rachael manages customer relations.

He said: “We are a family business. Helen McArdle is a real person – she is my mother, we are very proud of what she has achieved single-handedly after bringing up four children.”