Scottish builder Miller Group said yesterday it was severing links with the family which has run and mostly owned it throughout its 81-year history.
Chief executive Keith Miller, 65, will step down at the end of March, the firm announced yesterday.
Mr Miller said the time was right to pass the leadership of the group and its businesses to their respective management teams.
A spokeswoman for Miller, whose development arm has a string of projects around Aberdeen, later told the Press and Journal it was entirely the boss’s decision.
She added: “Keith Miller has been the company for 40 years, 20 of which he served as CEO.
“He is now 65 and it is a long time to be at the helm. The businesses – homes, mining and developments – are all performing well and delivering good results, and each of them is led by its own CEO and management team.
“That said, he is not retiring and will pursue an active business life.”
The company will not be appointing anyone to replace Mr Miller, opting instead for a new management structure of subsidiary CEOs reporting directly to the board.
Mr Miller, the son of one of three brothers who founded the group as James Miller and Partners in 1934, owns a minority stake in the business and plans to keep it.
GSO Capital Partners, part of US private-equity company Blackstone Group, has had a majority shareholding in Miller since December 2011.
A £160million refinancing of the business gave GSO a lion’s sharealongside other investors including Mr Miller, merchant bank Noble Grossart, Lloyds Banking Group, the Royal Bank of Scotland and National Australia Bank.
Last September, housebuilding division Miller Homes unveiled plans to float on the London Stock Exchange and appointed former Cable and Wireless communications chief Tony Rice as chairman to oversee an October initial public offering.
The flotation was expected to value the housebuilder at more than £400million, with some analysts predicting an enterprise figure, including net debt, of about £600million.
But its plans were scrapped just a month later, with Edinburgh-based Miller blaming volatile financial market conditions.