Homes England to get just 2% of the £68.8m owed by Ilke Homes after collapse

The agency gave private equity-backed Ilke two loans in 2019 and 2021. It collapsed into administration in June 2023 with total debts of £319m, leaving around 1,000 staff redundant. 

The administrators had previously revealed that Ilke also owed £249m to unsecured creditors.

Of this, £227m consisted of inter-company debts associated with losses suffered by investors, which included G15 landlord The Guinness Partnership, as well the firm’s former private equity backers TDR Capital, Sun Capital and Fortress Investment Group.

According to the latest progress report, as a secured creditor Homes England is the only organisation likely to get any money back. 

It said the liquidators “do not anticipate that any funds will become available to enable any distributions to be made to the preferential or unsecured creditors”. 

“The anticipated return to Homes England from the company comprises solely of realisations from this plant and machinery, which is shown net of associated fees and expenses. 

“As the Homes England security was granted across the Ilke group, further distributions may become available to England from those entities, which are not shown here,” the report said.

Homes England declined to comment.

In January, a House of Lords inquiry concluded that the government’s approach to modern methods of construction was in “disarray” and “simply throwing money at the sector hasn’t worked”. 

In October, another builder – TopHat – announced that it was winding down its modular housing operations.