Inland Homes appoints new chair

Troubled AIM-listed housebuilder and land promoter Inland Homes has appointed chartered accountant Matthew Robinson as chair of the board.

The appointment means the firm avoids the threat of suspension from the exchange hovering over the firm since its chair and two other board members were forced to stand down at the start of the month due to the uncovering of “related party issues”.

Their potential departure left £182m turnover Inland, which has no permanent chief executive and has issued a string of profit warnings, without the required number of directors to continue with its AIM listing.

Robinson is currently director of animal feed company Anpario, and was previously a director of gold recovery firm Goldplat PLC, among other current and previous directorships. Inland said that Robinson had spent “much of his career working with and advising listed and growth companies”.

However, Robinson has also been involved in a number of companies including Boxman and, most recently, Blue Lias Technologies, which have ended up folding.

Blue Lias was wound up in 2019 following a High Court Order after a petition of creditors.

Inland said there will also be additional appointments to the board, and that “discussions in this regard are progressing”. However, the firm said nothing in today’s statement about the potential return of the company’s founder, Stephen Wicks, who stood down from the business in September last year when it announced a profit warning, but who the business said on March 1 was set to return.

Last September Inland warned that it would make a loss of around £37m for the year. However in January it revealed this figure had ballooned to more than £90m.

Former chief executive Wicks announced his retirement last September following the profit warning, but his replacement, former Galliard boss Don O’Sullivan quit in January just over a month into the job.

Then, late last month, the firm said it was delaying publication of its results, despite having secured agreement from its banks to waive covenant breaches.

The firm said that with the appointment of Robinson the resignation of the former chair Simon Bennett formally takes effect.