ADRIAN COOPER is Chairman of Team Ltd. After graduating from Sheffield University, he worked as a surveyor before becoming Principal Partner of Hadley Cooper Associates, an agency selling properties on behalf of  developers. Adrian says: "We created TEAM because I couldn’t continue making money by lying to people - making promises that we couldn’t deliver."

Q: The construction industry cannot keep up with the demand for new homes. Will TEAM Ltd make a difference to this legacy of failure?

Adrian: When we created TEAM Ltd., we decided that honesty would be our bedrock principle. British builders say they can produce 212,000 units in a year, if forced to do so – a personal best. So why can France produce twice as many homes as that, every year, and why can Spain deliver 600,000 units a year? In Japan, just one company produces 90,000 units a year, fully customised houses – not apartments – and they have been doing it during the last 10 years when their economy was in difficulty.

We believe that Britain’s builders could double output, but that means we have to come out of a state of denial. So TEAM approached the challenge from an ethical point of view. We must make a profit, but we would rather not do it by selling people short.

Q: But building companies say the problem does not lie with them. Aren’t they obstructed by the planning system?

Adrian: There are 128,000 plots with planning permission in Greater London alone, so the shortfall in the supply of affordable dwellings cannot be with the planning system.
 
Q: You stress the need for honesty. Are you saying that builders are not telling the truth?

Adrian: I am not saying that lies are being told. But I believe that a clique operates that prevents supply catching up with demand. I am not saying that the clique is a formal cartel, in which house builders fix prices and rig the market behind closed doors. It’s the logic of the incentives which exist today that delivers perverse outcomes. Quite simply, it is not in the interests of builders to place an additional 200,000 dwellings on the market.

We at TEAM identified this unmet need as a business opportunity. We plan to deliver an extra 10,000 homes a year, in five centres throughout the country, and it would be fantastic if another 19 companies joined us to achieve the industry’s true potential.
 
Q: What are the incentives that constrain builders from meeting demand?

Adrian: One of them is the windfall gains they make from land banks. No matter how inefficient they are, they can make enough money from land to satisfy shareholders. This attitude then flows through to practices such as relying on casual labour. I know from bitter personal experience that men who turn up on building sites will close the doors behind them and drink tea for the rest of the day rather than getting on with their work. This reduces productivity and raises the cost of homes.

At TEAM, we are building a workforce that will receive 51% of the shares of the
company. That’s the kind of incentive that motivates people to deliver quality
homes that are affordable.

But while we pride ourselves on having an ethical approach, we can’t buck the land market. So we have structured our plans to plough back windfall profits into our communities. For example, we are working on a scheme to help people on middle incomes who cannot benefit from subsidised social housing and are excluded by market prices.

 

Q: Is there a risk of TEAM being viewed as do-gooders?

Adrian: Don’t get me wrong. My passion is to capture that huge surplus profit that is to be made out of housing. But we want to redistribute that surplus. Our stakeholders are not just the shareholders who created TEAM. They include our employees, our financiers, landowners, the people who buy our homes and society at large. If we produce quiet, defect-free homes at affordable prices, that leaves a lot of profit to share between us. And by cutting the cost of housing, we leave more money in people’s pockets, which raises their living standards.  This is the “win win” situation that we can deliver if we modernise the way we build our homes.

Back to TEAM Players