Prater rejig sees chief exec leave as German owner brings in big hitter to sit on UK board

Roofing and façade specialist Prater is parting company with its veteran chief executive as part of a wider rejig by its German owner.

The company, which has been owned by Lindner for the past 11 years, said Richard Unwin was leaving under plans to “complete the integration of Lindner Prater into the heart of the Lindner Group”.

Unwin, who turned 55 in February, joined the company as a teenager in 1983 and has been with it ever since. He became operations director in 2004, managing director nine years later and then chief of Lindner’s UK sector in 2014, taking a spot on the board of the German firm’s facades business Lindner Fassaden.

Staff were told last Thursday that Unwin was off and in a statement the firm confirmed to Building he was stepping down and leaving his role.

It added: “The Group Board recognise Richard’s commitment and professionalism and greatly appreciate the dedication he has shown over the past 37 [sic] years on the journey from Prater Roofing through to the Lindner Prater of today.”

The firm said Gavin Hamblett, who has been with the business 16 years, “will continue to lead Lindner Prater as managing director” having been first appointed to the role in 2015.

It added: “Martin Schmidhuber will join the UK Board to represent the Lindner Group.” Schmidhuber is a former boss of the parent company’s operations in China. The firm said: “There will be no change to the day to day delivery of our projects and we remain focused on technical excellence and innovation.”

In its last set of results filed at Companies House, Prater said it racked up a £9.4m pre-tax loss in 2020 from a £2m profit in 2019.

Prater, whose projects in the past few years have included the Stirling Prize-winning Bloomberg building in the City of London as well as the new No1 Court at Wimbledon, both completed by Sir Robert McAlpine, said turnover slipped 30% to £65m.

It said covid and Brexit uncertainty had eaten into its bottom line while it had to make a provision for remedial work on “one significant project”.

Last year, Building revealed that a flagship building built by Mace for broadcaster Sky in west London was having to be repaired because the roof was leaking.

Prater was the roofing contractor on the £220m Sky Central scheme which was completed in 2016 and has been showered with a host of accolades.