The Financial Conduct Authority has opened an investigation into the beleaguered housing investor Home REIT.
In a stock exchange notice today, Home REIT said it had been notified of an investigation into it from the FCA, covering the period between 22 September 2020 to 3 January 2023.
“Naturally, the company will cooperate fully with the FCA in its work,” the trust added.
After a damning short attack from Viceroy Research which sounded the alarm on the sturdiness of the company’s tenant base and rental income in October 2022, auditor BDO was asked to look again the firm’s accounts.
Trading in Home REIT’s shares was then suspended in January 2023 after it missed the deadline to publish its annual report. Since then, it has faced numerous bankruptcies among its biggest tenants.
The trust said last week that it was planning to publish its long-overdue audited results in the second quarter of this year.
It has been slowly selling properties in its portfolio, last month selling 98 properties and 103 properties in two separate transactions.
Home REIT’s shareholders moved at the end of last year to formally sue the trust and its investment manager after it revealed its property portfolio was now worth less than half of what it initially paid.