After a year of woe and four chief executives trying to rescue the business, AIM-listed Inland Homes has begun the process of appointing David Hudson and Phil Armstrong of FRP Advisory Trading as administrators of the company.
Earlier this year FRP conducted a review of what were described as related party relationships and transactions within Inland Homes. It emerged that that former chief executive Stephen Wicks and finance director Nish Malde, both founding shareholders of the business, had breached Alternative Investment Market (AIM) rules in regard to its financial relationship with First Place Nurseries Limited (FPN), a primary education business also founded by Wicks and Malde, with each owning approximately 40%.
Inland Homes has still not been able to file its financial results for year ended 30th September 2022 because of the auditing issues that have arisen as a result. In April trading in Inland Homes’ shares on the AIM market were suspended because of its inability to publish audited accounts in time. These accounts are now six months late.
Inland also anticipates that it is likely to be in breach of covenants with lenders soon and has initiated discussions with them.
In July 2023, Inland announced a new strategy, bringing it former Gleeson chief executive Jolyon Harrison to run the business and agreeing a deal to acquire NorthCountry Homes Limited, which is 51% owned by Harrison.
However, that acquisition was dependent restoration to trading on AIM. But this is now not going to happen and so the NorthCountry Homes deal has been scrapped.
Inland anticipates that admission of its shares to AIM will be cancelled on 4th October 2023 – next Wednesday.
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