Homes England to lose most of £68.8m it is owed from Ilke Homes following collapse

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.

Ilke was the second major modular firm that Homes England had invested in that had failed. 

The agency also lent House by Urban Splash £27m and took a £3m equity stake in the business before it fell into administration in May 2022. Homes England recovered the loan, but not the £3m. 

Speaking to peers on the House of Lords Built Environment Committee in December, David Bridges, chief investment officer at Homes England, admitted he was not “fantastically pleased” by the losses on Ilke and House by Urban Splash.

However, he said the losses needed to be put in context as they were only a small proportion of the funds Homes England distributed to boost housebuilding.

In a report following an inquiry into the wider modular sector, the Built Environment Committee last month concluded that the government’s strategy was in “disarray” and “simply throwing money at the sector hasn’t worked”.

Lord Moylan, chair of the committee, told Inside Housing that the inquiry had thrown up “some really interesting insights” into the way public money is spent and how “things can proceed with apparently nobody really being in charge”.

The lord had questioned the government’s focus on modern methods of construction given a lack of “comprehensible objectives”.

He added: “What will success look like? I don’t think they really have an answer that you could measure, certainly not one you could put numbers to.”

Homes England declined to comment on the latest report from the administrators.