 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Minerals |
| Founded | 1964 as Hanson Trust Ltd |
| Headquarters | London, England |
Key people | Simon Willis (Chief executive officer) |
| Products | Building materials |
| Revenue | £4,133m (2006)[citation needed] |
| £563m (2006) [citation needed] | |
| £401m (2006) [citation needed] | |
Number of employees | 3,500 (2019) [citation needed] |
| Parent | HeidelbergCement |
| Website | heidelbergmaterials |
Heidelberg Materials UK is a British-based building materials company, headquartered in Maidenhead. Previously known as Hanson UK, the company has been a subsidiary of the German company HeidelbergCement since August 2007, and was formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Originally trading as Wiles Group; the company was transformed into Hanson Trust Ltd by James Hanson and Gordon White in 1964. Over a thirty year period, Hanson pursued a principal strategy of raising shareholder value through a series of acquisitions. Several large businesses were purchased throughout the 1980s, such as the United Drapery Stores in 1983, Imperial Tobacco in 1986 and Kidde in 1987. Some of these acquisitions drew criticism and opposition. During 1991, Hanson Plc attempted its largest-yet acquisition of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), but this was hotly contested and ultimately unsuccessful.
By the start of the 1990s, Hanson Plc had become a sizable conglomerate and one of the largest firms based in Britain. However, amid negative perceptions of the conglomerate model, the company was reorganised into four separate listed firms during the mid 1990s, these being: Hanson plc, Imperial Tobacco, The Energy Group and Millennium Chemicals. In 2007, HeidelbergCement purchased Hanson Plc in exchange for £8 billion to create the second largest cement and building materials company in the world. In October 2023, the company announced that it was rebranding as Heidelberg Materials.