The ‘migrant hotel kings’ raking in millions from asylum seekers: Bosses of the three firms which have made £380m profit by providing refugee accommodation
More than 11,000 people have arrived in the UK on small boats this year – and for a small selection of private sector asylum fat cats, that’s good for business.
Three firms have profited to the tune of £380million from providing asylum accommodation in the latest wave of the migrant crisis in the space of five years – equivalent to sharing in £146 of pure profit every minute.
A National Audit Office report found the three companies – Clearsprings, Serco and Mears – averaged a seven per cent profit margin in the period between September 2019, when their Home Office contracts began, and August 2024.
And the deals to house asylum seekers in hotels and other temporary accommodation have made their bosses super rich – propelling the highest earner onto the Sunday Times Rich List.
Campaigners have called for the contracts to be taken off of ‘privateering’ firms. the Home Office has already stripped a subcontractor of the right to manage asylum accommodation amid concerns over its performance.
At the end of December, 42,000 asylum seekers were in Home Office ‘contingency accommodation’, including 38,000 in hotels, which the NAO said were likely to be ‘more profitable’ than other types of accommodation.
But with this much money to be made, it’s unlikely any of the fatcats profiled below will give up these golden geese before the deals expire in September 2029 – unless they are compelled.
Tim Naor Hilton, chief executive of Refugee Action previously told MailOnline: ‘These accommodation contracts have allowed firms to rip off the taxpayer while people seeking asylum are forced to live in housing that’s harmful.’
A National Audit Office report last week warned the costs of asylum accommodation were set to triple.
In response, the Home Office said it had ‘inherited an asylum system in chaos’, criticising the previous Conservative government for signing ‘disastrous contracts that were wasting millions in taxpayer money’.
Clearsprings boss Graham King rakes in £4.8million a day supplying asylum accommodation – splashing out on globe-trotting holidays
Clearsprings paid £90million dividend to a company controlled by founder King – despite complaints of squalid accommodation
Asylum seekers carry their belongings out of a London hotel operated by Clearsprings in January 2024 after it told them their rooms were being freed up
The Clearsprings ‘asylum king’
King by name, asylum king by profession, Clearsprings founder Graham King rakes in £4.8million a day from his Home Office contract to house and transport migrant arrivals.
He started his firm in 1999, just before the Home Office began contracting immigration services out to the private sector, and has milked it ever since.
At the turn of the century he ran a caravan park in Essex but branched out into asylum accommodation after losing the licence for a disco.
Clearsprings paid a dividend of £90million to a company controlled by its founder last year – even as its accommodation has been described as ‘decrepit’ and ‘impoverished’.
It also paid £16million to Bespoke Strategy Solutions Ltd, a company that does not appear to be registered in the UK, prompting accusations that the firm was sending money overseas in order to lower its UK tax burden.
The firm has refused to comment on the claims.
But King found himself on the Sunday Times Rich List last year with an estimated £750million.
Green Party peer Natalie Bennett told Metro that King was a ‘casebook example’ of privatisation allowing public money to be ‘siphoned off into private profit’.
Nevertheless, his earnings have funded globetrotting trips and Alpine ski holidays for himself and his family.
Photos of the reclusive millionaire show him relaxing in sunny climes in swimming shorts, while his TripAdvisor profile is full of criticisms of some of the five-star hotels he has stayed in himself.
All the while, asylum seekers were found to be living in squalid conditions at sites managed by his firm.
A 2021 submission to Parliament by researchers including humanitarian organisation Doctors of the World said rooms at Clearsprings accommodation in ex-Army camps in Kent and Pembrokeshire did not have enough beds.
A third of those living at the sites were found to be in mental distress, with as many as 20 sharing a single hut.
One told them, in evidence submitted to a Parliament committee, that they were ‘being housed like goats’.
Another said: ‘This is the same as when we were imprisoned in Libya, just without the physical violence.’
Clearsprings was contacted for further comment.
When Mears took on its home office contract, its boss was David Miles (pictured), who owns a string of plush properties across the south of England
The firm is now run by Lucas Critchley, who may have picked up as much as £1.1million between his salary and bonuses last year
Mears is a publicly traded company on the London Stock Exchange (pictured) – and reported £46.9million of profit in 2023
Asylum seekers pictured outside a migrant hotel in Altrincham, Greater Manchester last year
Homes filled with bed bugs – as boss ‘pockets £1.1m’
Mears Group is expected to receive a total of £2.5billion over the duration of its ten year contract with the Home Office – one of several Government deals it has.
In 2019, when the accommodation contract was awarded, its chief executive was David Miles – who was later found to have a £2million mansion in the south west, a multimillion pound Marylebone bolthole and a plush retreat in Kent.
Neighbours told the Sun on Sunday he would ‘occasionally visit’ the five-bed leafy Kent home, and he also owned a large listed country house in Devon.
Miles announced in 2022 he would quit the CEO job, eventually doing so at the end of 2023 as revenge hit £1billion. He was replaced by Lucas Critchley.
Critchley has been a director of Mears Group since January 2023. Accounts filed with Companies House state that the firm made pre-tax profits of £46.9million in the year to December 2023, up 83 per cent on two years prior.
Last year it warned that losing the asylum contract in 2026 would be a ‘principal risk’ to its business.
Mears Group is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange. In 2020, the firm’s share price rallied as the Home Office asked its contractors to expand their use of hotels for migrants as the pandemic took hold.
In October that year, Mears shares traded for £1.10 each – and are now worth almost four times as much.
Critchley has worked his way up in the firm, after joining as a business apprentice in 2004. He now owns swathes of shares in the firm, including tens of thousands of shares awarded in bonuses.
He also takes home a basic salary of £315,000 a year – but financial statements suggest he could have taken home as much as £1.1million in total salary and bonuses in 2024.
Mears has previously insisted that its executive pay is on ‘the lower end of the scale’, which the company said had ‘always been a conscious decision on our part’.
This year, it has already returned £16million to shareholders via a share buyback and is set to pay out a dividend of 16p per share in July subject to approval – up from 13p per share the year before – netting executives thousands of pounds.
People thought to be migrants being brought into Dover after making a small boat crossing last week
Mears was housing migrants in the Park Inn hotel in Glasgow city centre during the pandemic when an asylum seeker stabbed multiple people
Badreddin Abdalla Adam Bosh had called the Home Office and its affiliates 72 times with concerns about his health and accomodation before he went on a rampage
But its accommodation has been described as bed bug-ridden, filled with mould, lacking fire alarms and falling into disrepair.
An investigation by The i Paper found walls of some properties were eroding and that electrical sockets were loose.
Mears claims that Home Office contracts are around 40 per cent of its business.
It said at the end of last year: ‘Mears provide accommodation for asylum seekers that is safe, habitable and fit for purpose and meets all Home Office contractual standards.
‘The provision of asylum accommodation and support is one part of our activities and our publicly declared profits relate to performance across the Group.
‘Profits on the provision of the asylum accommodation and support contracts are capped and open book arrangements exist with the Home Office.’
A horrifying attack unfolded at a Mears-run asylum hotel in Glasgow in June 2020, when asylum seeker Badreddin Abdalla Adam Bosh stabbed several people including a police officer before being shot dead by armed cops.
The attack happened three months into lockdown, when Mears moved hundreds of asylum seekers into hotels, including Glasgow’s Park Inn – prompting criticism from refugee groups who said it put migrants’ health at risk.
A fatal accident inquiry (FAI) – Scotland’s equivalent of a coroner’s inquest – is underway into the circumstances of the incident.
It heard in March that Bosh, who had fled Darfur, was said to have suffered from poor mental health in the accommodation and had called the Home Office 72 times about his health and living conditions.
He had even requested to be returned to Sudan, but this had been delayed by the pandemic.
Andrew Webster KC, representing the Home Office at the FAI, said the Secretary of State will ‘listen and learn and will assist the Crown in the preparation of the inquiry’.
A spokesperson for the Home Office said it would be inappropriate to comment while the inquiry is ongoing.
A 2023 investigation by Scotland’s Crown Office deemed the actions of police that day as proportionate.
But an asylum seeker caught up in the attack said people were treated like ‘prisoners’ in the hotel.
He told the Guardian in 2021: ‘I really do not blame Badreddin for what he did, he was in a very bad state. I blame the Home Office and I blame Mears. They did not listen enough.’
Mears was contacted for further comment. Miles could not be reached for comment.
Serco is a government contracting juggernaut – with immigration services just one of many sectors it is involved in
It took up a Home Office contract for asylum accommodation said to be worth £5.5billion in 2019 under the leadership of Rupert Soames, grandson of Sir Winston Churchill
It then brought in Mark Irwin as CEO, who left after just two years to retire – picking up an estimated £2million golden goodbye for two months’ work
Serco’s current CEO is now Anthony Kirby, who could earn up to £4.9million in salary, bonuses and share awards this year alone
The contracting juggernaut that handed its retiring boss £2million – for two months’ work
Immigration is just one of many pies that contracting juggernaut Serco has its fingers in – but it nevertheless guides a great deal of its financial performance.
The FTSE-listed firm reported total revenue of £5.29bn last year, of which £1.73bn came from its work in both justice and immigration – growing on the previous year. It reported an underlying profit of £273.5m, up for the seventh year running.
Under Rupert Soames, grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, it took on a Home Office asylum accommodation contract thought to be worth £5.5billion in 2019 which is set to run until 2029.
Soames had been brought in to steady the ship after a series of scandals – including overcharging to tag prisoners who were in prison, out of the country or even dead.
He left at the end of 2022, in which time he was paid £4.4million between his base salary, bonuses and other payments such as long-term share incentives.
He was replaced by UK and Europe boss Mark Irwin, who himself stepped down into a ‘strategic adviser’ transition role in February 2025.
He was paid £2.25million – made up of an £818,000 salary and other bonuses – in 2024, and had an interest in some 4.9million shares – worth £7.3million.
But he is also walking away with the most golden of goodbyes – a full year’s salary for 2025, despite leaving in February, and a pro-rated annual bonus – in all, said to be worth £2million.
Serco described his full year’s salary as a ‘contractual entitlement’ covering a 12 month notice period.
The award is in line with Serco’s remuneration policy, which says pay for executives is designed to ‘provide market-competitive reward opportunities’ and ‘significant financial rewards’ for exceeding expectations.
A group of men thought to be migrants outside a hotel in Altrincham last month. Some 40,000 asylum seekers are thought to be in hotels across Britain
The use of hotels to house asylum seekers has courted the anger of right-wing anti-immigration protesters (seen here outside the Altrincham hotel)
Anger led to attacks on hotels housing asylum seekers in the wake of the Southport killings (pictured, a crowd outside the Holiday Inn Express in Rotherham last August)
Irwin was replaced earlier this year by Anthony Kirby, who arrives on a base salary of £845,000 to oversee the firm’s widespread operations.
Kirby will be entitled to a maximum bonus of 175 per cent of his salary – just short of £1.5million – as well as a long-term incentive plan payout that could net him 200 per cent over time.
However, he will only collect up to his annual salary in cash, with the rest being awarded in Serco shares.
In all, Serco estimates this could be worth up to £4.9million this year alone – but is at pains to point out on average the CEO has earned 53 per cent of the maximum possible bonus in the last two years.
The firm has defended the profits it has generated from its Home Office work, telling the Financial Times it made ‘low single-digit returns’ across its government contracts.
It also claimed to have lost £100m on its previous asylum accommodation deal that ran from 2012 to 2019.
A spokesperson told MailOnline today: ‘Serco is a FTSE company with over 55,000 employees operating in more than 20 countries worldwide working across defence, space, justice, migration, transport, healthcare and customer services.
‘Asylum contracts in the UK make up a small part of our total global revenue. Our CEO’s salary is externally and independently benchmarked and in line with other large and complex international businesses.’
But it landed itself in hot water last month after posting a list of local authorities on its website that it said showed where it was contracted to provide asylum seeker accommodation.
It said it was ‘looking for’ landlords, investors and agents to provide additional accommodation for asylum applicants in exchange for free property management and maintenance.
But it sparked fury at a time when housing demand among Brits is at an all-time high, and earned an angry riposte from the Home Office which denied that the list showed where it was looking to house asylum seekers.
Serco later pulled the list, as a spokesperson said: ‘This does not indicate the Government will be opening new accommodation in these areas.’
MailOnline has contacted Irwin for further comment. Soames could not be reached for comment.
Safwan Adam is one of the directors of asylum accommodation firm Stay Belvedere Hotels Ltd
His business partner, Bassam Gilini, is also a director in the firm as well as a property developer. The pair each own 17.5 per cent of the company
Firms like SBLH have been cashing in on the small boats crisis and earning their shareholders millions (pictured: a small boat in the Channel in August 2024)
The subcontractors paying themselves millions in taxpayer cash
Earlier this year, Stay Belvedere Hotels Ltd (SBHL) – a subcontractor of Clearsprings – was stripped of the right to operate asylum accommodation for the Home Office after civil servants expressed concerns over its performance.
Exactly what gave them pause for thought has never been disclosed – but the firm paid its directors and shareholders £45million out of an estimated £700million in a single year.
MailOnline revealed last month how directors Safwan Adam and Bassam Gilini paid out the eye-watering sum to five shareholders – including around £7.8million to themselves each.
This comes despite the firm being accused of failing to meet financial commitments to the hotels it is using for asylum accommodation, and after being accused of paying workers less than minimum wage.
Both directors appear to have little experience in managing immigration accommodation prior to being appointed to the firm in April 2021.
Adam has a degree in aeronautical engineering, runs his own investment firm and a franchise of CeX second-hand electronics shops, and is also a shareholder in a franchise of homecare providers.
He was also, for a time, involved in a German Doner Kebab franchise, according to his LinkedIn profile – which fails to mention his dealings in asylum hotels – and worked for Madame Tussauds.
Gilini, meanwhile, boasts that he is a ‘visionary’ property developer on his website, having previously run pop-up fireworks shops and a sushi restaurant in east London.
Asylum minister Angela Eagle said that SBHL had been given the boot after the Home Office improved its ‘oversight’ of firms operating asylum hotels – and deemed it unsuitable to look after asylum seekers.
‘We have made the decision to remove Stay Belvedere Hotels from the Home Office supply chain and will not hesitate to take further action to ensure Home Office contracts deliver for the UK,’ she said.
A spokesperson for SBHL told MailOnline that its financial statements had been externally audited to ensure ‘full compliance with applicable accounting, auditing and fiduciary standards’.
On dividends, they added: ‘The dividends paid to shareholders were compliant, lawful and reflected earnings.’
Adam and Gilini have failed to respond to requests for comment from MailOnline.
