Annington Homes

Last updated

Annington Limited
Company type Subsidiary
Industry Real estate
Founded29 July 1996;28 years ago (1996-07-29)
HeadquartersLondon, UK
Key people
Parent Terra Firma Capital Partners
Website www.annington.co.uk
Footnotes /references
[1] [2]

Annington Homes is a provider of privately rented homes in the United Kingdom, [3] specialising in converting former Ministry of Defence (MoD) housing for the general public since 1996. [4] Since 2012, the company has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Terra Firma Capital Partners. [3]

Contents

History

In 1996, the MoD sold all its housing for military personnel and their families, 57,400 properties, to Annington Homes for £1.67bn as part of a broader process of privatisation of state assets, making Annington the largest owner of residential property in England and Wales. [3] Annington Homes had been established earlier that year as a shell company by Nomura Holdings; Nomura's Guy Hands played a central role in the deal. [3] The MoD lacked funds to maintain the properties, and intended to rent the homes from Annington at a discounted rate, while allowing the company to sell homes the armed forces no longer required. [3]

In 2012 Nomura sold Annington Homes to Terra Firma for £3.2bn. The rent per house paid by the MoD nearly doubled between 1997 and 2016, and in 2016 the MoD paid dilapidations of £21,809 on average when returning homes to Annington. [3] As of 2017, around 20,000 of the 57,400 homes had been sold on. [3] Kevan Jones, who was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Veterans under Gordon Brown, described the MoD's deal with Annington as "an incredibly bad deal for the taxpayer." [3] Alan West, Baron West of Spithead, the former First Sea Lord, said the armed forces had failed to understand the long-term consequences of the deal at the time it was made. [3]

In 2022, the MoD announced plans to use the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 to reverse the privatisation deal and return the properties to public ownership. [5] Terra Firma said it would challenge the decision in court. [5]

In December 2024, Annington agreed to sell 36,347 homes (the Married Quarters Estate) back to the MoD for £5.99 billion, ending the legal dispute. The deal ended a "huge annual rental bill", saving around £230m a year. [6]

References

  1. ↑ "Directors Profile" . Retrieved 14 July 2020.
  2. ↑ "Companies House Company Profile" . Retrieved 14 July 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Watt, Holly (25 April 2017). "How the MoD's plan to privatise military housing ended in disaster". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 December 2018.
  4. ↑ "Empty MoD homes 'cost millions'". BBC. 6 March 2008. Retrieved 2 December 2018.
  5. 1 2 Kollewe, Julia (27 January 2022). "MoD seeks to buy back 38,000 homes leased from firm run by billionaire". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 April 2022.
  6. ↑ Kollewe, Julia (17 December 2024). "Billionaire Guy Hands' property firm sells military homes to MoD for £6bn". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 December 2024.


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