Home REIT has been mired in scandal for over a year. For the first time, City A.M. can reveal the existence of a previously undisclosed businessman in the middle of a string of its property deals
In January last year, one of the charity tenants of crisis-hit social housing investor Home REIT emailed two of its investment chiefs with a question.
This was nothing out of the ordinary. The bosses of Home REIT’s investment manager, Charlotte Fletcher and Alex Baker, had been bombarded by emails and calls after a damning short-seller report sent the fund into a tailspin two months prior.
But the question posed in the subject line of this email was a simple one: “Who is Tom Dawes?”
Attached to the email was a collage style video of a man in a Donald Trump mask and shots of people all asking the same question.
“Who the f*ck is this guy Tom Dawes?” asked one man to the camera.
That question has been swirling around those who worked with Home REIT as it scrambles for stability in the wake of Viceroy Research’s report in November 2022.
The former FTSE 250 firm floated in 2020 on the promise of helping to alleviate homelessness in the UK while providing a steady return to investors. Under its original business plans, the fund would acquire portfolios of refurbished properties, let those to charities with a “proven operating track record”, who would in turn provide beds and support to homeless and vulnerable people.
Its rental income meanwhile would be provided by exempt housing benefits, according to Home REIT, meaning it would effectively be back-stopped by the government.
However, those claims have been repeatedly blown apart. A string of its biggest tenants have gone bankrupt after failing to secure exempt housing status and Home REIT’s rental take has evaporated.
The sprawling portfolio of supposedly refurbished social housing has cratered in value after closer inspections revealed disrepair across the estate and the misuse of housing earmarked for vulnerable groups.
In a statement to the stock market in December, bosses at Home REIT admitted that its portfolio was now worth just 42 per cent of the £977m it initially paid, raising major questions over why it bought the housing stock.
Home REIT was set up to house the homeless.
TD Advisory
The question of Tom Dawes’ role in the debacle stems from a series of leaked documents from companies run by a property dealmaker called Christopher Downing, who sold tens of millions of pounds of properties to the firm.
The documents, obtained by City A.M., show that a company called TD Advisory run by Tom Dawes was set to take a 30 per cent cut in some of Downing’s deals with Home REIT.
In one document laying out a pipeline of deals with the fund, TD Advisory looked set to pocket £4.85m.
A single transaction document related to a completed £4.3m property deal in March 2022 shows TD Advisory took a cut of £800,000 from one deal.
TD Advisory’s role in deals has never been publicly acknowledged by Home REIT or the company’s former investment manager, Alvarium Home REIT Advisors.
But the man behind the firm has raised questions among those burnt by Home REIT’s downfall.
TD Advisory and Tom Dawes do not appear to have any obvious professional property experience.
According to Companies House, TD Advisory, which was founded in August 2020, provides “management consultancy services”.
Dawes himself is a creative industry specialist who worked as the global creative director at the Indian firm Godrej, specialising in consumer product marketing. According to Companies House, he is still an active director at Godrej UK.
On his Instagram page, seen by City A.M., his bio read ‘Adverts & Music’, with a link to Joss Stones’ new single ‘Girls’ released in 2023, on which he’s credited as an executive producer. It has since been changed to read: “There’s nothing to see here…please move along.”
Personal ties
But the reason his role has triggered such interest is due to his personal ties to the former fund manager of Alvarium Home REIT Advisors, Gareth Jones.
Dawes went to Cardiff University with Jones, according to screenshots of their now deleted LinkedIn profiles seen by City A.M.
Pictures on Dawes’ personal Instagram page, seen by City A.M., show the pair socialising together in the run up to Christmas 2019.
Jones stepped down from Home REIT in November 2022 for “health reasons”, according to a previous statement from the firm.
In a statement to City A.M., lawyers for Dawes said he was “acquainted, on both a personal and professional level, with Gareth Jones” and confirmed he received money as part of property deals between Downing and Home REIT.
They described Dawes as “an experienced and successful entrepreneur with business interests and investments across a broad range of industries”, including “shipping, fast-moving consumer goods and property” in multiple countries.
They added: “Mr Dawes and Christopher Downing were existing business acquaintances prior to Mr Dawes and TD Advisory Ltd entering into a business relationship with Mr Downing’s company interests associated with Home REIT.
“Mr Dawes (via TD Advisory Ltd) was engaged by Mr Downing to provide business advice, and to act in an intermediary capacity in Mr Downing’s company relationships with Home REIT, owing to Mr Dawes’ strong entrepreneurial background and his previous experience with social care investments.
“For its services, TD Advisory Ltd received a proportion of the profits that Mr Downing made through the sale of properties to Home REIT.”
Lawyers for Tom Dawes
“For its services, TD Advisory Ltd received a proportion of the profits that Mr Downing made through the sale of properties to Home REIT.”
However, his lawyers declined to say precisely how much money he made from Downing’s deals with Home REIT, adding that it would “not be appropriate for Mr Dawes or TD Advisory Ltd to disclose specific commercial arrangements” beyond what information is available on Companies House.
TD Advisory was wound down in November 2022 after two years of operation, in which time a £6.1m loan was taken out by a director, accounts show. Dawes was the company’s sole director at the time.
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Home REIT was warned of ‘slum conditions’ in October in row between tenants and property vendor
The admission that a personal friend of Jones made money in Home REIT’s deals with Downing raises major conflict of interest concerns.
Property portfolios sold by Downing to Home REIT have already been a subject of controversy for the firm. City A.M. revealed last year that bosses had been warned of “slum conditions” in some of the properties he sold into the fund.
The charities renting the properties accused Downing of failing to provide contractually agreed refurbishments, which he strongly denies, leaving vulnerable tenants in substandard housing.
When approached with a list of questions about TD Advisory and Tom Dawes on Whatsapp, Downing said “I will not comment” before blocking a City A.M. reporter.
In response to a question from City A.M. about whether TD advisory or Dawes made any payments to Jones after receiving money as part of deals between Downing and Home REIT, his lawyers said: “Any allegations that inappropriate payments were made by Mr Dawes (either personally or through TD Advisory Ltd) to Gareth Jones (or otherwise) are strongly denied. Indeed, TD Advisory Ltd has never paid or transferred any sums to Gareth Jones.”
Jones could not be reached for comment.
Home REIT was warned
Despite never acknowledging the role of TD Advisory publicly, City A.M. can reveal that the company’s involvement in deals with Downing was flagged to Alvarium Home REIT Advisors three times by three separate external whistleblowers in December 2022.
One email sent to Alex Baker in December 2022, seen by City A.M., sounded the alarm over the close ties between Jones and Christopher Downing, and said it was “notable that Mr Jones has a connection with TD Advisory who was receiving considerable sums of money from the portfolios.”
Two months after the whistleblower warnings in December 2022, Home REIT appointed forensic accountants at Alvarez & Marsal to investigate its deals.
While the full outcome of that investigation was not revealed and A&M did not mention TD Advisory specifically, the investigators said in a report in May last year that it had uncovered the existence of “certain undisclosed potential outside business interests and undeclared potential conflicts of interest as between certain persons associated with [Alvarium] and third parties”.
Home REIT declined to comment. Charlotte Fletcher and Alex Baker, who now own Alvarium Home REIT Advisers, did not respond to requests for comment.
City A.M. previously revealed that the Serious Fraud Office has opened inquiries into Home REIT.
An SFO spokesperson said: “In line with long established practice to avoid prejudice to law enforcement activity, we can neither confirm nor deny any investigation into this matter.”
The Financial Conduct Authority and National Crime Agency are also looking into Home REIT.
Questions remain
Dawes’s presence in the deals raises yet further questions for Home REIT over how it acquired its properties and exactly who was profiting.
The firm has severed ties with its investment manager Alvarium Home REIT Advisors, which oversaw the acquisition of the housing, and called in AEW last year to try and steady the ship. Under AEW’s management, Home REIT, which still has its shares suspended, has been offloading properties at dramatically cut prices.
The entirety of Home REIT’s board agreed to step down in January, with outgoing chair Lynne Fennah claiming she “share[d] investors’ frustration at the events which have unfolded over the last 14 months”.
Even after her departure, however, investors still have questions that remain unanswered. Many will want to know why a friend of the fund manager profited from deals while Home REIT spent hundreds of millions of pounds on property now shown to be worth a fraction of what it paid.