Andrew Shepherd will be managing director at Ibstock Futures

The former managing director of TopHat has announced he has joined brick manufacturer Ibstock. 

Andrew Shepherd revealed in a post on LinkedIn that he had joined the firm as managing director of the Ibstock Futures business unit. 

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Andrew Shepherd, new MD of Ibstock Future

Ibstock Futures is a modern methods of construction business which works with developers and contractors 鈥渂ringing industrialisation to the supply chain鈥�, according to its website. 

Shepherd had recently announced his departure from modular firm TopHat, which he said had been faced with 鈥渃hallenging circumstances鈥�. 

TopHat, which posted a 拢20.4m pre-tax loss for the year to 31 October 2022, announced plans to make around 70 redundancies to cut costs earlier this year. 

Ibstock has also experienced a difficult period as the housing slowdown hit demand.

In January, the firm closed a second factory in less than six months and in March it posted reduced profit and income of 拢30m and 拢406m. 

>> Read more: Ibstock profit nosedives as housing slowdown hits brickmaker鈥檚 numbers 

Announcing his move, Shepherd said: 鈥淎s a leading British manufacturer, with over 200 years of expertise in the building products sector, there is a real opportunity to accelerate the group鈥檚 diversification and innovation plans in MMC and sustainable solutions.鈥�

Prior to working at TopHat, Shepherd had previously worked at Currie & Brown, Landsec, Laing O鈥橰ourke and as chief executive of Mid Group.