Centex Homes history

In 1969 Centex went public, selling 500,000 shares of common stock.

A 1976 Fortune article noted that the Centex subsidiary was able to “turn over its $1 million inventory of building materials 15 times a year.

The oil-and-gas business Cenergy, for example, was sold as a separate company in 1984; this divestment more firmly planted Centex in the construction business.

One offshoot was Centex Mortgage Banking, which by 1985 had changed its name to CTX Mortgage Company and had expanded into all of the builder’s major markets.

A crash in Texas construction followed the plummet in oil prices in 1986 and the subsequent failure of a number of Texas savings and loans.

In 1987 Centex established a new subsidiary, Centex Development Company, to oversee the land.

Its unit output (9,184) easily outdistanced second-place, Michigan-based Pulte Homes (6,493). As Builder reported, Centex also posted a 29 percent increase in closings over 1991, as well as a ten percent increase in gross revenues covering the same period.

Contracts for 1992 included Veterans Administration medical centers in Detroit and Indianapolis; hospital expansions in San Diego and Miami; a wastewater treatment plant in Hot Springs, Arkansas; and even a Wal-Mart store in Paducah, Kentucky.

In 1994 net income had risen to $85 million on revenues of $3.2 billion.

Centex diversified into two new industries in 1996: pest control, with the purchase of Environmental Safety Systems, and security systems, with the purchase of portions of Advanced Protection Systems.

In 1998 it purchased Wayne Homes, a construction company that specialized in building on buyer-owned land.