Administrators investigate unopened care home firm Carlauren's missing millions

Carlauren, a developer promoting luxury care homes, never opened most of its care homes to the public and its chief executive is accused of misappropriating company funds, which he denies.

Carlauren bought 25 properties in the UK, including a property in High Littleton near Bristol but administrators have been called in to search for millions of pounds owed to its investors.

The business was funded by selling individual rooms in the properties to investors for £100,000 each.

Many of the investors were promised 10 per cent (£10,000) rental income a year. However, most of the care homes never had a single resident move in.

The Insolvency and Companies Court in London heard Carlauren Group investors had invested £76m, however most of the money is unaccounted for. The investors allege their money had been transferred into the personal account of Carlauren’s chief executive Sean Murray.

Sean Murray told the High Court, during the three-day hearing, there are no missing millions after investors applied to appoint administrators to control his company’s assets and investigate the disappearance of their money.

‘Derelict’ care homes

Run by Mr Murray, Carlauren Group Ltd and Carlauren International Holdings Ltd are the holding companies for businesses supporting care homes or hotels providing care. There are more than 20 companies under the Carlauren Group name. Across the businesses more than 260 staff are employed but administrators said the staff have not been paid.

Carl Jackson, managing partner at business advisory firm Quantuma and Philip Duffy of Duff and Phelps were appointed as joint administrators.

Quantuma said investors were told that their money was for the purchase of long-term leases in care homes or hotels with on call care. Some 777 rooms were purchased by the group since 2016, many of which did not have planning permission.

By July of this year, all of the firm’s care homes had closed with the group running commercial hotels and other non-care companies.

Carl Jackson, managing partner at Quantuma, said: “Following my investigation of three of the Carlauren group in my role as Joint Administrator earlier this year, I was extremely concerned by the findings, with millions of pounds of investors’ money unaccounted for.

“While many investors were promised 10 per cent per annum return on their funds through the care homes, many of the properties supposedly owned by Carlauren remain unopened and in some cases derelict.

“I am grateful to the Court for this verdict, as myself and Philip Duffy now have a formal remit to recover as much value as possible for creditors and investors.

“We will also be working with the 260 members of staff across the group that we understand have not been paid to identify the best outcome for them too.”