When James Laing died in 1882, his son, John Laing (born in 1842) took over the running of the company. John began to take larger contracts but kept the business in the Carlisle area.
John's son, John William Laing, (born in 1879) was working for the business before he was 20 years old, and so it became John Laing and Son. By 1910, John William Laing was running the business. More employees were recruited and larger projects were undertaken, including factory construction.
In 1920 the firm became a limited company, and two years later moved its headquarters from Carlisle to a thirteen acre (5 ha) site at Mill Hill in north-west London.
William Kirby Laing and John Maurice Laing, the fifth generation of the founding family, joined the company in 1950.
John Laing & Sons (Holdings) Ltd was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1952. The family and its trusts and charities held the majority of the shares. John William Laing became the chairman, and his sons became joint managing directors. By this time, the number of employees was around 10,000, and every site had a quality supervisor. John William Laing retired in 1957.
Under William Kirby Laing and James Maurice Laing, the company continued to expand. They gained contracts for power stations. They also worked on road construction while continuing to build houses. In 1985, Martin Laing, of the sixth generation of the founding family, became chairman.
Martin Laing determined that the company should begin to diversify. Home construction in the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Spain, and California was now one of the major sources of the company's growth.
As the company celebrated its 150th anniversary in 1998, it faced falling profits caused by cost overruns on the Millennium project and continuing problems within its construction division, related to competition and overcapacity.
In 1999 John Laing plc purchased a controlling interest in the Chiltern Rail franchise and by 2002 had structured itself into two main divisions, namely Homes and Investments. It underwent yet another change when Sir Martin Laing retired in early 2002. Bill Forrester took over as executive chairman. For the first time in its history Laing did not have a member of the founding family at the head of the company.
The business expanded rapidly in the late 1990s, such that for the year ended 31 December 2001 its turnover was in excess of £1 billion. Following significant losses on certain construction contracts it adopted a new policy of having the PPP / PFI businesses, in which it had been quite successful, as core activities. As a consequence it disposed of its construction division, which was sold to O'Rourke in 2001, its property developments divisions, which were sold to Kier Group, and its house building arm which was sold to George Wimpey in 2002.
In December 2006 John Laing plc was acquired by the Private Equity arm of Henderson Group.
The Laing Rail division - operators of Chiltern Railways and London Overground (with MTR Corporation), and holders of a stake in the open-access railway operator Wrexham & Shropshire - was put up for sale by in September 2007. The division was purchased by German rail operator Deutsche Bahn in January 2008, subject to approval by authorities.
In June 2008 John Laing formed a consortium with Hitachi and Barclays Private Equity called Agility Trains to bid for the contract to design, manufacture, and maintain a fleet of long-distance trains for the Intercity Express Programme. The bid was successful and the contract was awarded to the consortium on the 12 February 2009.
John Laing now has operations in the UK, North America, Europe and Asia.
John Laing’s former construction division, Laing Construction, undertook a number of landmark projects including:
The M1 motorway completed in 1959, Coventry Cathedral completed in 1962, Clifton Cathedral completed in 1973, the Sizewell B nuclear power station completed in 1995, the Second Severn Crossing completed in 1996, the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff completed in 1999 and Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital completed in 2001.
The subsidiary Laing Rail owned and operated Chiltern Railways and was joint operator of London Overground (with MTR Corporation) and Wrexham & Shropshire (with Renaissance Trains). In 2008 Laing Rail was sold to Deutsche Bahn.
Christian Eriksen
Christian Dannemann Eriksen (born 14 February 1992) is a Danish footballer who plays for the Italian club Inter Milan and the Denmark national team as an midfielder. He made his debut for the Denmark national team in March 2010, and was the youngest player of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
In 2011, Eriksen was named Danish Football Player of the Year, Dutch Football Talent of the Year, Ajax Talent of the Year (Marco van Basten Award), and made the UEFA Euro U-21 Team of the Tournament. He won the Eredivisie with Ajax in 2010–11, 2011–12, and in 2012–13 before signing with Tottenham Hotspur in August 2013. He won the Tottenham Hotspur Player of the Year award for the 2013–14 season and in 2015, he won the Danish Football Player of the Year award for the second year in a row.
Eriksen started playing football in his hometown Middelfart before his third birthday. In 2005 he switched to Odense Boldklub, who competed in the Danish youth championships. His team lost the semi-final against Brøndby IF, but afterwards he was named "Best Technical Player" of the tournament. The following year OB won the tournament, when Eriksen scored the only goal in the final. After some good performances for OB's U-16 team and later on U-19 team and the Danish U-17 team, major European football clubs including Chelsea and Barcelona began to take notice. The player had trials with Barcelona, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Manchester United and Milan, but finally decided to move to Ajax, stating ""My first step should not be too big. I knew that playing in the Netherlands would be very good for my development. Then Ajax arrived and that was a fantastic option"".
On 17 October 2008 it was announced that Eriksen had signed a two-and-a-half-year contract with Amsterdam-based Ajax. The transfer fee received by OB was estimated at €1 million (£847,199). He worked his way through the youth teams, and was promoted to the first team squad in January 2010, where he was given the number 51 shirt. Within the month, he made his first team debut for the Dutch team in the Eredivisie on 17 January 2010 against NAC Breda. Ajax manager Martin Jol compared him to the likes of Ajax youth products Wesley Sneijder and Rafael van der Vaart and described him as a good reader of the game in the traditional "number 10" role like the two Dutch internationals and Danish legend Michael Laudrup, who also played for Ajax.
On 25 March 2010 he scored his first goal for Ajax in a 6–0 win against opponent Go Ahead Eagles in the Dutch Cup. On 10 April 2010, Eriksen extended his contract with Ajax until the summer of 2014, stating ""I can still learn a lot here, I'm not finished yet and I hope I can mean a lot for the club."" On 6 May 2010, Eriksen played in the second match of the final of the 2009–10 Dutch Cup as Ajax beat Feyenoord 1–4, with 1–6 on aggregate. At the end of his first professional season at Ajax, Eriksen had played 21 competitive matches, scoring one goal, and had made his international debut for Denmark. For his second season in the first team of Ajax, Eriksen was given the number 8 shirt.