Richard Sharp, who is the new chair of the BBC, was the manager of an investment group funding a property company that has been accused of cramming homeless and low-income families into former office blocks. Mr Sharp was a senior member of RoundShield Partners which managed a fund that provided a £50m loan to Caridon over the last six years. Mr Sharp was still at RoundShield until last week when they were approached by the Guardian who were set to break the story.
The company have insisted that the move was “always intended” prior ahead of him taking up his position at the BBC on the 15th of February. UNN’s Oliver Down understands that Caridon had converted office buildings into flats that, where legal but were below the government’s “space standard” and have been described by those who saw them as “rabbit hutches”.
It has emerged that Carindon had collected more than £3.6m in universal credit in housing payments from people living in its developments since April 2019. Mr Sharp joined RoundShield in 2014 which is a year before the deal with Caridon. In addition to this, Sharp also chaired RoundShield’s investment board until April last year.
RoundShield have released a statement that says: “As always intended, he has formally resigned from RoundShield and is ceding his partnership interests ahead of becoming the non-executive chairman of the BBC”.
Caridon have described themselves in a statement as an “honest, hard-working and successful family business”. It said has also said: “Many of our referrals have struggled to secure accommodation and were previously living in emergency shared or temporary accommodation, hostels or even street homeless and relying on night shelters”.
Current Affairs Correspondent | My name is Oliver Down I am 22, and a staunch brexiteer. I am a Bristolian lad who studied politics in Leicester. I believe in free speech and accurate journalism and I won’t be afraid to give you “the other side” of the story!
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