Latest news with #JeffFairburn
Times
02-08-2025
- Business
- Times
Angela Rayner, the housing tycoon and his £100m cladding bailout
Housing secretary Angela Rayner is poised to throw a lifeline to controversial housebuilding tycoon Jeff Fairburn as his troubled company's bill to fix Grenfell Tower-style cladding balloons beyond £100 million. Fairburn, famed for pocketing £75 million in 2018 while running Persimmon Homes when it was profiting from the taxpayer-funded Help-to-Buy programme, now chairs Avant Homes. The debt-laden and lossmaking business, one of Britain's biggest housebuilders, has seen its costs for replacing potentially lethal cladding soar. Much of the money spent came from loans from the taxpayer to the housebuilding industry which were meant to be repaid rapidly, but it has emerged today that Rayner's department is close to permitting Avant to postpone repayments. Avant's cladding bill has jumped from £68.4 million last year to £106.9 million, accounts revealed last week. That came on top of spiralling losses and debts at the company, backed by Wall Street hedge fund Elliott Management. The cost of remediation was initially footed by taxpayers through the Building Safety Fund (BSF), which then recouped the money from the developer responsible for building the property. More recently, housebuilders have committed to assessing potentially dangerous properties and then paying for remedial works. Avant's £106.9 million is a mix of money owed to taxpayers through the BSF and an estimate of the cost to ensure the remaining buildings are safe. Bosses at Avant have been in talks with officials from Rayner's housing department for more than a year to agree to delay the reimbursement of taxpayers for funds due to the BSF. Payments will be 'deferred and spread over a number of years' under a deal that is 'now reaching a conclusion', Avant said. However, fears that the company could run out of cash persist. The company's 'liquidity risk' rose in the year to June 2024, the balance sheet date for the accounts. Avant has £250 million of borrowing from a group of lenders led by HSBC. It was due to repay the group on July 24, but is understood to have been granted a short-term extension while it negotiates a refinancing of its bank loan. The company is in advanced talks to extend its bank loan to the end of October 2026 — although only £180 million of the debt would be refinanced, reducing to £150 million by the end of March next year. Avant Homes Group Limited generated an £83 million pre-tax loss in the 12 months to June 30, 2024, the accounts disclose. The previous year the company turned a £1.5 million pre-tax profit. Avant's auditor KPMG flagged a 'material uncertainty' over Avant's ability to continue trading for the foreseeable future. KPMG said that Avant's ability to finalise a refinancing and a forbearance deal with the housing department as well as reducing spending on new plots of land would determine whether the company could stay afloat. A spokeswoman for Avant said: 'The group is overseeing the remediation of buildings constructed since 1992. All of the buildings which are potentially in scope were developed whilst the group was under previous ownership and management. 'Avant is making every effort to remediate the building defects created by others in response to the building safety obligations, but the scale and complexity of these obligations have required extensive technical and legal evaluations. 'We have sought to work with MHCLG [the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government], lenders, and independent experts to ensure the remediation, which is a priority for management, is delivered responsibly, sustainably and in as an accelerated timescale as possible.' Fairburn established Avant as one of the UK's biggest regional housebuilders, with significant developments across Yorkshire, northeast England, the Midlands and Scotland. Elliott is the majority owner of the business with Fairburn also owning a major stake. Shareholder loans, which attract 12 per cent interest that is added to the total borrowing, rose from £356 million to £422 million. The government said: 'Viva Midco, parent company of Avant Homes, are one of 54 developers who signed a Developer Remediation Contract with government and we expect all signatories to comply with their contractual commitments. 'We are taking decisive, tough action and going further than ever before to speed up the unacceptably slow pace of remediation, drive accountability across the sector, and provide an end in sight for residents who have suffered for too long.'
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Elliott-owned housebuilder Avant clinches deal with lenders
A major British housebuilder owned by the prominent investor Elliott Management has clinched a refinancing deal with its lenders amid growing financial pressure on the industry over cladding-related liabilities. Sky News has learnt that Avant Homes, which has been owned by Elliott since 2021, has reached an agreement with a syndicate of lenders to provide additional financial headroom to the company. Details of the refinancing were unclear on Tuesday, although a source close to Elliott insisted that it had not committed any new capital to Avant as part of it. Avant sold more than 1,750 homes in the year to 30 June 2023, the last for which results are available, and recorded revenue of almost £500m. However, in recent months there has been growing industry speculation about the company's financial health as cladding-related exposures hit housebuilders across the industry. In recent weeks, investment bankers have been canvassing interest from rival housebuilders about a takeover of Avant, although sources close to Elliott and Avant denied that any such process was being conducted on their behalf. Avant is chaired by Jeff Fairburn, who left Persimmon in 2018 amid a City outcry over his vast pay package. Elliott's deal to buy Avant was engineered through Berkeley DeVeer, in which it was already a shareholder. Last year, Sky News revealed that Avant had tabled an offer to acquire the London-listed housebuilder Crest Nicholson, although the proposal was ultimately unsuccessful. Avant and Elliott both declined to comment.
Sky News
15-07-2025
- Business
- Sky News
Elliott-owned housebuilder Avant clinches deal with lenders
A major British housebuilder owned by the prominent investor Elliott Management has clinched a refinancing deal with its lenders amid growing financial pressure on the industry over cladding-related liabilities. Sky News has learnt that Avant Homes, which has been owned by Elliott since 2021, has reached agreement with a syndicate of lenders to provide additional financial headroom to the company. Details of the refinancing were unclear on Tuesday, although a source close to Elliott insisted that it had not committed any new capital to Avant as part of it. Avant sold more than 1,750 homes in the year to 30 June 2023, the last for which results are available, and recorded revenue of almost £500m. However, in recent months there has been growing industry speculation about the company's financial health as cladding-related exposures hit housebuilders across the industry. In recent weeks, investment bankers have been canvassing interest from rival housebuilders about a takeover of Avant, although sources close to Elliott and Avant denied that any such process was being conducted on their behalf. Avant is chaired by Jeff Fairburn, who left Persimmon in 2018 amid a City outcry over his vast pay package. Elliott's deal to buy Avant was engineered through Berkeley DeVeer, in which it was already a shareholder. Last year, Sky News revealed that Avant had tabled an offer to acquire the London-listed housebuilder Crest Nicholson, although the proposal was ultimately unsuccessful.
