Scottish entrepreneur Robert Kilgour has secured £30 million from an unnamed investor to nearly double the size of his Renaissance care home chain within the next three years.
Mr Kilgour is said to currently be looking at “several possible” acquisitions to add to the group’s existing portfolio of 16 care homes located throughout Scotland. Renaissance has completed a number of such deals since it was set up in 2004, the most recent being the acquisition of Malin Court in Ayrshire in January 2021.
“As we look to further growth, we are proceeding with our expansion plans to double the size of Renaissance Care across the country, becoming one of Scotland’s major care home operators,” he said.
“At the heart of that, we are investing, developing and working alongside our people, ensuring that we can attract and retain the very best of talent to instil a person-centred approach across each of our homes.”
Along with its new acquisition war chest, the company has also announced plans to spend £14m to improve energy efficiency and add new beds at its existing homes. Financed by fresh banking facilities, this work will include £6m in refurbishments such as improved insulation, LED lighting, new windows, new boilers and improved heating control.
A further £8m will be spent to add 56 bedrooms at six of its current sites, subject to planning permission. Details were not available about which sites are potentially due for expansion.
Mr Kilgour said this investment is essential to “future-proof” the business, which like others in the sector came under intense pressure during the pandemic.
“This investment is substantial but, in our view, vital in maintaining and improving the high standards at our homes,” he said.
“The last two years have been an incredibly tough time for residents, families and our hard-working team members in care homes across the country, and it is important to us that we provide the best possible care and facilities for our people. Despite all that we have been through since the start of the pandemic, we remain very positive about the direction of the business and our future plans.”
With revenues of £32.7m in the year to November 2021, Renaissance employs approximately 1,200 people and currently has some 60 vacancies across its operations.
READ MORE: Whitecraigs move for care home business
Mr Kilgour said the group is developing its people strategy to assist with current and future recruitment needs. As part of this, Renaissance recently announced a full “cultural review” in response to the levels of exhaustion among staff following the pandemic, with staff being offered a range of new benefits including flexible working, a full pay review, and a health and wellbeing package.
The care home operator is additionally investing £500,000 in its management and accounting systems to improve administrative processing for staff.
Renaissance is majority-owned by Dow Investments, which in turn is owned by Mr Kilgour and his family. In addition to his primary interest in care homes, Mr Kilgour’s other business interests include video and security systems specialist NW Security Group, and he was a founder shareholder of Fife radio station Kingdom FM.
He is also a long-time fundraiser for Macmillan Cancer Support, and in April 2017 launched pro-Union group Scottish Business UK.
He set up Renaissance in 2004 with three homes in Edinburgh, having previously founded Four Seasons Health Care in Fife in 1988.
Renaissance currently has care homes in Glasgow, Uddingston, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Peterhead, Forres, Inverness, Blairgowrie and Turnberry.
Its most recent acquisition was a £1.1m deal to take over Malin Court, which sits on an 11-acre site near the Trump-owned Turnberry golf course. Founded by Niall Hodge in 1971, the home was previously owned by the Malin Housing Association elderly care charity chaired by tea-cake magnate Sir Boyd Tunnock.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here