Paul Little to sell out of Little Projects to existing directors
Little Projects has announced that chairman, Paul Little will sell his portion of the property development business to existing directors Leighton Pyke and Paris Lechte (pictured above).
They will take over controlling interest in the company effective 1 January 2019.
The decision comes as Little Projects seeks to implement a site acquisition strategy with a focus on growing a diverse pipeline across medium scale residential, industrial, hotel and student accommodation sectors.
"It's just that property is very lumpy and it's also very time consuming and it's a good time to transition out of a full development role into an investment role," Little advised.
Pyke and Lechte have both worked alongside Little at executive level and on the board of Little Projects, which has delivered award winning residential and commercial buildings within Australia and New Zealand during the last decade.
Little will remain an advisor to Little Projects and will continue to invest in new projects that meet the group’s overall objectives.
He will retain ownership of his other businesses including Little Real Estate, aviation and the subdivision that owns broadacre sites at Suffolk Park and Dayton, north-east of Perth.
"The market in WA has been through a more difficult phase but it appears to be straightening out now," he said. "It would probably be a mistake to look at selling out of the estates we currently have."
The restructure in the business will not affect the ownership and delivery of the current project pipeline in any way, Pyke said.
"The strong synergistical fit of Little Projects and Little Real Estate will continue to deliver a seamless solution for our customers," he said.
Little confirmed that the Little Group Offices would still be keen to invest in the property development sector via Little Projects where strategic benchmarks were met.
Little also confirmed that other activities within the expanding Little Group would be unaffected this announcement.
Little, who turned 71 this week, said the sale of the business to development director Mr Pyke and construction director Mr Lechte would allow him to stop playing a full-time development role and focus on investing in his current projects and some new ones.
"There's no scaling down at all," Little told Nine's The Australian Financial Review.
Financial documents filed with regulator ASIC show net profit after tax for the company in which Mr Little is the sole shareholder more than halved to $10.3 million in the year to June from $24.8 million a year earlier.
Sales revenue jumped to $60 million from $12.7 million as site acquisitions also jumped to $52 million from $10 million.