NOT since 1991 has it been so tough to be in the housebuilding business.
Last time there was a long slow recession, with sky-high interest rates and 10 per cent year-on-year falls in the value of housing driving many homeowners into negative equity. This time, many are describing it as a mortgage famine, as cash-strapped
banks turn off the taps on mortgage lending.
For the big UK housebuilders, the impact has been disastrous, as companies such as Taylor Wimpey and Barratt, whose income from selling houses has slowed to a trickle, struggle to make the repayments on their own massive debts. Both publicly-listed companies, their share prices have dropped precipitously as shareholders abandon the industry as a dud investment.
For Geoff Ball, chairman and founding director of independent Scottish housebuilding and property group, Cala, the times are certainly grim. According to Ball the market "fell off a cliff" in March, leaving Cala, along with the rest of the industry "shell-shocked". Although he has been in the industry for over 30 years he admits he has never seen anything like it.
Times are not, perhaps, as bad for Ball as they are for his counterparts at bigger companies. For one, his company is privately owned by its lenders and its employees. Ball led the company off the stock exchange in 1999, which for him and the company was a far preferable situation to be in.
Part of his motivation came during the early 90s crisis when he'd had to deliver a profits warning. He described it as the most humiliating experience of his life and swore he would never be put in a position to do it again. And although he fully expects not to generate the same profits this year as he did last year, it is not as painful.
Being private also means his shareholders are far fewer in number and much closer to the business. Last December, 250 employees and the Bank of Scotland bought out some of the management team who were retiring from the business. These sorts of shareholders have a much more vested interest in ensuring the company survives.
At the same time Cala nailed down the soft cushion of a £60 million debt facility which will help to get them through the dry spell, expected in conservative estimates now to last at least until 2010.
Cala, however, has not been left unscathed. Desperate to ensure the company does not run out of cash, Ball called his newly strengthened management team together to implement what he called "Project Dunkirk".
Described as an "orderly retreat", Cala has downed tools on build projects except those that have a buyer. Given the current climate, it may also be forced to trim its landbank.
Recently, the property investment vehicle backed by Bank of Scotland and Sir Tom Hunter, LxB, bought up land at Winchburgh in Broxburn, where Cala has been behind plans for 3,500 new homes since 2005. Although Cala maintains it is still involved with the project, cash-rich LxB is currently working on a new masterplan for the area.
And then there are the headcount reductions. Although the job losses at Cala are nothing like those at the big housebuilders, 30 people out of Cala's 400-strong workforce have been let go.
The redundancies have torn Ball up emotionally. He worries about the impact on the wider industry of losing skilled workers, as well as the personal toll it has taken on his own employees. He says many of the people who are leaving Cala worked there for many years.
The effect was clear to his peers and contacts in the wider business industry, who hold Ball in high esteem both as a business leader and an all-round good chap. Donald Anderson, former leader of Edinburgh City Council, who had recruited Ball a few years ago to start up the Edinburgh Business Assembly, said: "You have to feel for the likes of Geoff, who is seeing a huge amount of effort in terms of building up Cala going through really tough times.
"When I spoke to him about a month or two ago he was actually pretty down about it all.
"I don't think I had ever seen him so down, he is normally quite a cheery individual. It is tough out there for housebuilders.
"The other thing about Geoff is he really cares about the people that work for him. A lot of people don't think business people are like that, but a lot of them are."
Until the full effects of the downturn became apparent, Ball had been planning to take a step back in order to enjoy life more and work a little less. A multi-millionaire who turns 65 in August, Ball has many other interests – following cricket, watching birds and golfing.
He has also been known to join his musician wife Mary and sing with the Scottish National Opera chorus. They have bought a house in the Borders which they are currently refurbishing, a nice place to entertain his two new young grandchildren.
Ball also has a civic-minded streak. In addition to volunteering to start up the Edinburgh Business Assembly, where he personally recruited some of the city's more high-profile business people to act as a sounding board for the council, he has done turns on the boards of the Housebuilders' Federation and Standard Life.
He won't leave Cala yet. He can't. He says he has a job to do with Cala mentoring and guiding some of the younger people who were promoted to the board in December.
Yet the current economic climate is threatening to tinge with disappointment a career that has otherwise been characterised by chutzpah and good timing.
It was Ball who, in 1974, spotted City of Aberdeen Land Association (hence Cala), a historic oddity of a company that collected feu duties and one of the first listed companies in Scotland.
In 1999, he took the company private in an audacious £100m management buyout. He and his team invested £8m, the rest of the money came from Bank of Scotland and investment bank Noble Grossart. A last-minute battle with rival builders Miller Group drove up the price but Ball prevailed.
Last month, Ernst & Young awarded Ball the title of Master Entrepreneur of the Year in honour of his achievement. He says his challenge is to do it again.
He might yet. According to Simon Rettie, managing director of upmarket estate agent Rettie & Co, Cala's are the sort of new houses more likely to hold their value in a falling market.
"I have the greatest respect for Geoff Ball," says Rettie, "I think he is absolutely one of the best in the new housing industry.
"He's been at the coalface for a long time. If anybody can steer a company through the uncharted waters ahead, he is the guy you'd want at the helm."
BACKGROUNDGEOFF Ball was born and raised in Bristol. Self-described as a "lapsed accountant", he is a CA but has now spent more than 30 years in the house building industry.
Attracted by the incipient boom in the Aberdeen oil and gas industry, in 1974 his company Greencoat Properties acquired the City of Aberdeen Land Association with some associates. Their new subsidiary, Cala Homes, launched the following year.
In 1999 he led a successful £100 million management buyout of Cala. At the time it was the largest ever MBO in Scotland.
He named the MBO team the Dotterel, after a rare northern species of bird, related to the plover, which nests in the Cairngorms and Grampians, and only ventures as far south as northern England.
Cala Homes has five regional bases – in Falkirk, Aberdeen, Leeds, Birmingham and Staines – and is focused on the mid to upper end of the market.
