Retirement home builder McCarthy & Stone has confirmed plans to return to the stock market with a flotation set to value the group at around £1 billion.
The Bournemouth-based group, founded in 1977, said it plans to raise £70 million in net proceeds from an initial public offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange by selling at least 25 per cent of equity in the firm to new investors.
The UK's largest retirement home builder said it plans to use the cash as part of its plans to invest £2.5 billion to buy land and build new homes over the next four years.
The firm said the retirement home market is under-supplied and aims to build 3,000 homes a year.
It added around 3.5 million people in the UK are interested in buying a retirement home, but up until April last year only 128,000 such properties had been built.
Chief executive Clive Fenton said: "There is a structural under-supply of specialist retirement housing in the UK and McCarthy & Stone has the expertise, track record and financial strength to address this need.
"Listing on the London Stock Exchange will provide the ideal foundation for the group to move to the next stage of its development."
The group's major shareholders include lender Goldman Sachs and buyout firms TPG, Strategic Value Partners, Anchorage Capital Partners and Alchemy Partners.
The float is expected to take place in November.
The IPO would mark a turnaround for the group, which along with a number of other housebuilders, was restructured due to the fall in house prices as a result of the financial crisis.
It was a public company for almost 20 years until 2006, when it was taken private in a £1.1 billion deal by a consortium led by Halifax Bank of Scotland and which included Sir Tom Hunter.
Earlier this month McCarthy & Stone posted a 40 per cent rise in underlying pre-tax profit of £88.4 million for the year to the end of August.
It built 1,923 homes in the period, 15 per cent up on a year ago, while its average selling price lifted by 12 per cent to £239,000.
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