Compton Group History Swansea

1955-1985

William Ballard started a housebuilding business in the mid 1950s. The business was run through various entities over the years, but more recently most of our residential development has been carried out by Compton Developments Limited, which was set up in 1974 and trades under the name of Ballard Homes.

Nearly all Ballard Homes developments have been in or around Neath and Swansea in South Wales . A list of some of the developments of new homes we have carried out in the past can be found on the Ballard Homes website by clicking here .

In the early 1980s we acquired our first parcel of land for commercial development: the site at Pontardulais Road , Swansea was sold on and was later occupied by Crazy Mac's.

William Ballard's son, Peter, joined the business full time in 1984.

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1985-1995

In 1985 we acquired 100% control of a ceramic tile business: the trade, which was originally carried on by B J Ceramics ( Wales) Limited, was subsequently transferred to Ceramiks Limited as part of a reorganisation. By having a ceramic tile company within the group, we have been able to optimise the standard of finishes in the new homes we built by selecting premium wall and floor tiles.

In 1987 we decided to invest some of the capital which had been built up in acquiring third party ground rent portfolios. We had already had a limited amount of experience of running a small ground rents portfolio, as some of our new homes had been sold on a leasehold basis with the freehold reversions being retained by ourselves. We were also already aware of the commercial potential for generating commissions from placing building insurance on behalf of lessees. By 1991 sufficient third party portfolios had been added to our existing portfolio to enable us to recruit both a full time in-house solicitor to acquire more ground rent portfolios and a full time chief executive to take the insurance broking business forward.

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1995-Present

In 1996 we decided to try our hand at venture capital. We invested in a variety of businesses, nearly all of which were based in South Wales . Typically, we acquired minority equity stakes of 30% in various unquoted companies in return for cash injections. This part of our business then led in 1999 to our funding university research carried out by The School of Biosciences, Cardiff University : in this instance we own 100% of the intellectual property generated from the research, with a sales based royalty due back to the University. The new slug barrier product (slugs.biz) was developed out of the research carried out by The School of Biosciences.

In 1999 we also started to provide a management service for lessees in blocks of flats. This meant that we could then acquire ground rent portfolios comprising flats where the landlord is obliged to provide management.

Finally, in 2005 we acquired 100% of Exploit4U Limited, which provides a service for patent owners of searching for and negotiating with potential licensees. The business model was developed out of the IP Wales programme run by University of Wales Swansea .