TRI Pointe Group, the nation’s 16th largest homebuilder, announced Tuesday, Jan. 19, that it is consolidating its six regional firms into a single brand: Tri Pointe Homes Inc.
It’s the latest development for a company that went from three out-of-work homebuilding execs and a pickup truck 11 years ago to one of the nation’s biggest housing providers, with more than $3 billion in gross revenue as of 2019, according to the latest Builder Magazine Top 100 companies.
In another development, Tri Pointe has moved its corporate headquarters from Southern California to the north Lake Tahoe community of Incline Village, Nev., a state that’s free of corporate, franchise and income taxes.
Tri Pointe didn’t say if the move was based on possible tax benefits, but a publicist said the relocation coincides with CEO Doug Bauer’s personal move to north Lake Tahoe, adding it “reflects Tri Pointe Homes’ anticipated growth outside of California.” The new “executive office” also will be used occasionally by company President and Chief Operating Officer Tom Mitchell.
National operations still will be run out of the company’s “home office” in Irvine, where a majority of Southern California-based employees will continue working.
Three former William Lyon Home executives launched Tri Pointe around a kitchen table at the height of the Great Recession after the Irvine Co. invited them and a handful of other builders to relaunch home construction on its then-idled land holdings.
In the decade since, Tri Pointe has gone public, then acquired a national homebuilding portfolio from paper-product maker Weyerhaeuser, leapfrogging to one of the largest new-home developers in the nation. Co-founder Bauer likened the $2.7 billion acquisition to “a guppy swallowing a whale.”
Tri Pointe initially continued to run Weyerhaeuser’s five companies — Pardee Homes, Trendmaker Homes, Maracay Homes, Winchester Homes and Quadrant Homes — under their original brands.
But now, 6 1/2 years after the consolidation, they’re renaming all 15 divisions operating in 10 states to the parent company name “to drive more operational efficiencies at all levels of the organization,” Bauer said.
Tri Pointe first revealed its unification plan during its third-quarter conference call on Oct. 22.
The rebranding will reap “some incremental marketing savings since we’ll be supporting only one brand versus six,” company Chief Financial Officer Glenn Keeler said in the October conference call.
Despite the pandemic, Tri Pointe’s business is booming.
Tri Pointe’s net earnings in the first nine months of 2020 jumped 87% to $167 million. New home orders over the summer jumped 50% to 1,933 units, in part because coronavirus lockdowns boosted demand for new homes, particularly outside dense urban areas, the company reported.
In November, Tri Pointe announced the second of two stock buybacks in 2020, authorizing the repurchase of up to $450 million worth of company shares, which closed at $18.34 apiece on Tuesday.
Publicist Carol Ruiz of NewGround PR and Marketing said the rebranding under one name won’t change Tri Pointe’s tradition of individualized home designs for local markets.
“They’re not a cookie cutter company at all,” Ruiz said.
Source: Orange County Register
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