The Company was originally founded by Bryan Skinner in 1963 as Crest Homes and floated on the London Stock Exchange five years later. Crest bought En-Tout-Cas, a leading name in tennis court construction in 1969. In 1971, Crest acquired Tony Pidgley’s earth moving business. Pidgley teamed up with Jim Farrer, a board member and originally the estate agent that had provided Skinner with his first land. The two ran Crest Homes until 1975 when they left to form Berkeley Homes.

A new company Crest Securities, was formed in 1972 to facilitate further diversification. At the end of that year, Crest bought the leading yacht maker Camper Nicholsons, giving rise to the current name Crest Nicholson. Other acquisitions included Lamson Engineering (1975), Crofton (1979), Greenwood Electronic (1985) and the west-country construction firm of CH Pearce in 1985.

Bryan Skinner retired in 1983 and the gradual process of disposal of the non-housing businesses began in the late 80’s enabling the housing division to follow a policy of acquiring a long-term land bank.

Crest was taken private on 3rd May 2007 after a £1.2bn take-over by HBOS and Scottish entrepreneur Sir Tom Hunter founder of Kwik-Fit. When the housing market crashed, Sir Tom's equity of around £45m was written-off along with the £648m of debt. At the time Crest's management were given a 10pc stake as an incentive. Crest’s other owners included a collection of banks and hedge funds.

Crest became owned by a consortium of 24 banks after a £630m debt-for-equity swap in March 2009. This unwound a debt-fuelled £1.2bn takeover of the housebuilder by Sir Tom Hunter and HBOS in 2007. Despite this, Crest Nicholson was still saddled with more than £500m of debt, racking up huge interest bills.

In April 2009 Hugh Osmond, a businessman who made his name at Pizza Express and Punch Taverns, made a £350m approach for Crest through his new Horizon investment venture. This was rejected by company. At that time, other house builders including Persimmon, Galliford Try and Redrow were also thought to be also considering a bid for the company. In the accounts to 31 October 2009, Crest made a £50.7m loss, making its debt burden difficult to support.

In September 2010 the US debt fund specialist Varde swooped on Crest, buying a 30% equity stake and a quarter of the company’s loans from the Lloyds Banking Group in a £150m deal. The hedge fund then demanded the remaining owners and management work to refinance and restructure the company's debts. The US investment company is known as a "loan to own" investor, acquiring a company debt with a view to taking large ownership positions in target companies.

Varde had been secretly buying Crest's £500m debt pile with the intention to clear the 75% mark. This enabled Varde to implement a scheme of arrangement that cut Crest's borrowings and complete a take-over through a debt-for-equity swap. On 23rd March 2011, Crest wrote to their lenders informing them that Varde now controls more than 80% of the company and that it is working with the hedge fund on a formal restructuring of the balance sheet. Crest's management, including chief executive Stephen Stone, retains ownership of around 10% of the company under Varde's plans.

Crest currently has loans of £431 million that are due for repayment in 2013