The controversial asylum hotel in Epping is boosting the fortune of an Australian tycoon worth £300million – who was previously responsible for the farcical Bibby Stockholm migrant barge.
Jamie Pherous’s firm is making tens of millions of pounds from British taxpayers, thanks to Home Office contracts paying more than £1.6billion for the accommodation and transport of asylum seekers.
The UK wing of his company made more than £100million profit in the two years to summer 2024 alone, and is raking in millions more despite its first flagship job, housing migrants on the docked Bibby Stockholm, descending into farce.
The floating hostel in Portland, Dorset, was evacuated when it was found to be riddled with deadly legionella bacteria in August 2023, and the costly project was later scrapped by Sir Keir Starmer‘s Labour Government.
Yet Mr Pherous, 56, who jumped on the migrant gravy train in 2023 after decades booking business trips for executives, continues building his vast fortune from 10,000 miles away, in balmy sub-tropical Brisbane, Queensland.
British taxpayers’ money is funding a playboy lifestyle featuring yearly helicopter skiing in Alaska. At work, he enthuses over his ‘amazing’ annual ’round-the-world trip – Singapore, Hong Kong, London, New York’.
In between jaunts, Mr Pherous relaxes at his glittering £10million waterside mansion.
Campaigning charity Refugee Action says Mr Pherous’s firm Corporate Travel Management (CTM) is one of the main companies ‘profiting from refugees’ misery’ in ‘the asylum-industrial complex’.
Jamie Pherous’s company made more than £100million profit in the UK in the two years to summer 2024 alone
The Bell Hotel in Epping has become a focal point for protests after an Ethiopian man who was staying there sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl
The UK wing of Mr Pherous’s global company declares in its accounts: ‘The directors seeks [sic] to behave in a responsible manner towards our community.’
But neighbours of the Bell Hotel in Epping differ.
It is among more than 50 hotels CTM has reportedly booked out to house asylum seekers for the Home Office.
And the current national surge of opposition to migrant hotels started at the Bell’s door in July. Bell resident Hadush Kebatu, 41, from Ethiopia, was arrested for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl just nine days after arriving in Britain on a dinghy.
That arrest sparked demonstrations calling for the Epping hotel’s closure, which fast spread to other migrant hotels across the country, amid concern at the arrival of 50,000 small boat migrants since Labour’s election last year.
Kebatu was convicted of sexual assault last week and awaits sentencing.
Although the local council last month won a judgement securing its closure, a Home Office appeal a fortnight ago ensured it remains open. The demonstrations continue.
According to Epping Forest District’s council’s ongoing bid to close the Bell – booked out by CTM to exclusively house 138 migrants – its owners failed to secure planning permission to switch it from normal hotel business.
Mr Pherous’s firm, whose shares are currently suspended from trade on the Australian stock market after an error was found in its accounts, keeps getting Home Office cash regardless.
And Mr Pherous, who has previously raised eyebrows by boasting of profit margins of more than 32 per cent, double his rivals, reportedly expected margins of more than 50 per cent on some CTM migrant work.
He started CTM in Brisbane in 1994, sharing a single computer with a single colleague.
After a few years as a chartered accountant for Arthur Andersen, including in Papua New Guinea and the United Arab Emirates, Mr Pherous realised he could profit from providing firms with cheaper travel for their roving executives.
CTM now has a global staff of 3,200.
But British taxpayers can rest assured he does not work too hard.
Mr Pherous, married to wife Louise for ten years, and with five sons aged 19 to 25, said last year: ‘I used to feel guilty when I heard how many hours other chief executives worked, because I wasn’t working those long hours.
‘But I knew that to avoid being burnt out, you need to take time out and spend time with your family and friends doing what you love.’
For Mr Pherous that has meant surfing before work – and ‘heli-skiing’ with friends in Alaska every year, hiring £15,000-a-day helicopters to drop him on remote peaks, to ski down virgin slopes.
Seven years ago Mr Pherous’s firm weathered a 20 per cent share price drop after he was accused of boosting its profile by having ‘phantom offices’, with researchers saying they found no evidence of its presence at five claimed European offices, and two in America vacant or unstaffed.
Mr Pherous attacked the claims as ‘ridiculous’. CTM blamed a failure to update office addresses on its website.
And business keeps booming, with the tycoon reassuring shareholders two years ago of his venture into housing UK migrants: ‘Our responsibility is limited to managing accommodation, transport logistics and meals. What is not part of our remit is duty of care.’
CTM, now being handed many millions by UK taxpayers, has been profitable enough for Mr Pherous to spend £10million building his four-storey riverside mansion in Brisbane. Plans for two pools, one rooftop, and his palace’s height, angered neighbours.
He paid £75,000 to have Australian rock star Jimmy Barnes play at his 50th birthday.
Last night a CTM spokesman, asked about the firm’s profits from housing UK migrants, said: ‘We have a dedicated accommodation team that works closely with Government on the Bridging Accommodation and Travel Services contract – awarded following stringent competition processes to ensure value for money for the taxpayer.
‘We do not have any profit margin targets on this contract.
‘The terms require us to source accommodation solutions and manage those chosen by the Home Office.’
