The private Blar Buidhe care home in Stornoway is being transferred to a company in serious financial trouble it has emerged.
The lease on nursing home is being handed back to its landlord, the NHP group, after debt ridden operator Southern Cross collapsed.
The building was rented from NHP and Southern Cross provided the nursing service to the 40 or so elderly residents.
After slashing lease repayments in a failed bid to stay afloat it is being forced to relinquish the property .
But in a mirror scenario of the huge money woes engulfing the care operator, the
landlord is also suffering massive multi-
Hebrides News has discovered the NHP group -
About a third of the leased Southern Cross care homes in the UK, including Blar Buidhe, are ultimately controlled by Qatar through a chain of about 40 companies..
The NHP group is an UK arm of Delta Commercial Property which, in turn, is owned by the Qatar Investment Authority, run by the Arabian country’s prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim. Delta Commercial Property is registered in the Isle of Man.
The care homes languish at the bottom of the pile under a complex network of inter-
In 2009, the two directors of the NHP group Jeremy Jensen and Paul Thompson from the Aaronite Partnership, a specialist turnaround advisory firm, took over the running of the companies.
About 40 companies under NHP were set up to own the care homes which in turn are rented to Southern Cross. Nearly 89% of its £73.6 million rental income comes from Southern Cross.
The property crash coupled with the credit crunchhas seen its assets devalued by £409 million to £928m in 2008.
Under the NHP system, the ownership of the care homes are split across a series of
mainly London-
One of the biggest finance dealing seems to have taken place in the subsidiary controlling Blar Buidhe in Stornoway, Cradhlehall in Inverness and the Invergordon Castle Garden care home. In 2010, it was recorded the three properties were registered to London subsidiary NHPS3.
According to NHP company records, the trio of buildings are only valued at £540,000 for which it received rent totaling about £500 a week.
Yet, the Stornoway care home company has guaranteed or lent £483million to sister firms while it has also defaulted on its own mortgages.
It made a £15.7million loss last year and is £215million in the red.
About 11,000 elderly people are resident in all 294 British care homes owned or controlled by NHP, formerly Nursing Home Properties. The group also owns three nurses’ accommodation blocks.
A few are leased to other care operators -
Jeremy Jensen, Director of NHP, sought to reassure elderly residents. He said his companies’ work with Southern Cross “continues to make good progress.”
Mr Jensen said: “The current day-
He added: “Our commitment to continuity of care remains our top priority. We continue to finalise our plans and further announcements will be made in due course."
Angus Nicolson, a Stornoway accountant who has been closely examining the local situation said the crisis was caused by legal tax avoidance schemes.
He outline the private equity process on his blog saying: “It is a scandal that the
public sector is effectively funding and encouraging tax-
Mr Nicolson added: “If there is a lesson to be learned from Southern Cross, and an
opportunity to be grasped, it is that public sector funded transactions must be transparent,
and must avoid tax-
Justin Bowden of the GMB union which has thousands of members working in the affected care homes said: “Southern Cross may be on its last legs but for Southern Cross's 31,000 residents and 43,000 staff this looks like a case of "out of the frying pan, into the fire."
He called landlords like NHP “a rag-
Stornoway care home faces fresh concerns 14/7/11