Berkeley

Company: Berkeley Group Holdings PLC

Brand value: US$701 million

Change since 2019: NEW ENTRY!

Headquarter city: Cobham

Category: Real Estate

Year formed: 1976

Berkeley has grown from a small-scale construction business, building just four homes in its first year of operation, to one of the leading developers in the country. Its goal is centered on urban regeneration, and it aims to build over 95 percent of its developments on brownfield land. The Berkeley Homes, St George and St James brands are all part of the Berkeley Group. Its developments focus on sites in London and the southwest of England. The business built more than 3,600 homes in 2019 and is the developer behind several of the capital’s luxury apartment blocks, including One Blackfriars. The founder of Berkeley, Tony Pidgley, remained the company’s chairman until his death in June this year. In March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, Berkeley said that coronavirus had cost it £80m in just six weeks due to restrictions on movement and the forced closure of building sites. In June, the company announced it was consulting on up to 200 redundancies; sales, revenue and profits were all significantly down.