Four Seasons Health Care, one of the UK’s largest independent health and residential care providers, collapsed into administration last week.
The Guardian reports it understands several potential buyers have expressed an interest in the business, which administrators said they hoped to sell before the end of the year – but Four Seasons has already struggled under successive owners, Guernsey-based private equity group Terra Firma and Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund.
According to The Guardian, industry experts say the provider could now be taken over and broken up by its largest lender, US property investment group H/2 Capital Partners.
Four Season’s collapse could be attributed to failing economies of scale.
According to its website, the organisation operates over 250 care homes and provides support to more than 13,000 clients across the UK – working out to an average of just 52 residents per home (a tough number to turn a profit with).
But the UK’s Labour Party leaders have placed blame on the current Government’s handling of the social care sector, questioning a “debt-fuelled business model” and under-funding that it says has caused “fragility and instability” and put both residents and aged care workers’ jobs at risk.
