The ‘king’ of Britain’s migrant hotels has officially become a billionaire after amassing his fortune by housing asylum seekers for the Government.
Essex tycoon Graham King, 57, is now estimated to be worth a staggering £1.015billion after a 35 per cent jump in his fortune made him Britain’s first asylum hotel billionaire.
His company, Clearsprings Ready Homes, is paid by the Home Office to provide short-term accommodation for asylum seekers and has a £1.7billion turnover, which means that Mr King and his firm rake in £4.8 million of taxpayers’ cash a day.
Mr King’s wealth has soared as a direct result of increasing immigration levels, with a record 108,138 refugees claiming asylum last year – up from 91,811 in 2023.
The former caravan park and disco owner, who grew up in Canvey Island, Essex, has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of Britain’s migration boom.
Clearsprings’ latest contract with the
Home Office
runs until September 2029 and is estimated to be worth £7.3billion, having previously only been valued at £1billion.
The company’s profits soared by 60 per cent from £74.4million to £119.4million in the year ending in January 2024.
The huge demand for accommodation to cope with the influx of migrants has also seen Mr King’s personal wealth hit £1.015billion, putting him in the same room as those on the annual Sunday Times Rich List.
Mr King, who owns more than 99 per cent of Clearsprings’ shares, was first catapulted onto the Sunday Times Rich List last year after cashing in on
accommodating and transporting migrants arriving in the UK
.
He was ranked as the 221st richest person in the UK last year with an estimated £750m fortune from ‘holiday parks, inheritance and housing asylum seekers for the government’.
But as his wealth continues to soar, he has climbed to 154th in the 2025 rich list which will be released in full next week.
Mr King’s billionaire status coincides with the government publishing its immigration white paper on Monday, where it will aim to cut the number of lower-skilled workers coming to the UK.
In the year ending last June, net migration was 728,000, while the number of people claiming asylum was a record 108,138. More than 11,500 people have made the treacherous illegal trip across the Channel in small boats already this year.
The record number of refugees landing on Britain’s shores has resulted in a backlog in asylum claims, with an estimated 38,000 asylum seekers being housed in 222 hotels and another 66,000 in other accommodation.
The cost of the ten-year hotel asylum contracts has soared from an estimated £4.5billion to £15.3billion, according to the National Audit Office.
It means that on average the taxpayer will spend £4,191,780 a day on housing asylum seekers over the life of the contracts.
The Home Office awarded the contracts to three suppliers – Mr King’s Clearsprings Ready Homes, Mears Group and Serco – which operate two or three UK regions each.
MailOnline revealed last November how Mr King used his fortune to rebrand as an amateur racing driver after whisking a glamorous Latvian businesswoman 18 years his junior on a string of romantic holidays.
The tycoon wooed Lolita Lace, 39, with fine dining and horse riding trips in the Caribbean after splitting with his wife Karin, 60. Ms Lace is understood to have moved into his Mayfair flat in 2017.
Clearsprings’ turnover is
made up largely from Home Office contracts to provide accommodation to asylum seekers in old military barracks, hotels and flats.
Their largest subsidiary is Clearspring Ready Homes Ltd. which houses asylum seekers on behalf of the Government and has a contract with Kent County Council to ‘provide accommodation and support to young asylum seekers and other care leavers’.
Clearsprings Ready Homes Ltd paid out dividends to its shareholders of £90million, last year, although it is unclear how much King received.
But while he ascended to ‘Asylum King’ status, Mr King has faced criticism over some of the accommodation he provides.
In 2023, 70 people, including children, slept outside in ‘protest’ after claiming they were put in small rooms without enough beds in two Clearsprings-run hotels in London.
Clearsprings would not comment at the time and instead
referred to the Home Office’s statement which read: ‘
Despite the number of people arriving in the UK reaching record levels, we continue to provide accommodation – at a cost of £6m a day – for asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute, to meet our legal obligation.
‘The accommodation offered to asylum seekers by providers, on a no-choice basis, is of a decent standard and meets all legal and contractual requirements.’
Mr King started off his business empire by running a caravan park in Canvey Island, Essex, with his brother.
He branched out after a disco he ran lost its licence and he suggested he could use the building – a former cinema – to house refugees instead.
Since launching his property firm in 1999, Mr King has won a series of lucrative government contracts to
provide short-term accommodation, mostly for asylum seekers
.
His firm made the news when a council chose to house benefit claimants in its caravans.
It was also in the firing line when inspectors found it was putting up asylum seekers in ‘decrepit’ and ‘run-down’ conditions at a former barracks in Kent and an Army camp in Pembrokeshire.
Inspectors found ‘fundamental failures of leadership and planning’, and stated that a third of the residents consulted claimed to have mental health problems
Mr King’s wealth has put his son and daughter through a £44,000-a-year boarding school, as well as funding globe-trotting holidays and Alpine ski trips.
His daughter is studying to be an artist and her creations include £10 prints bearing the slogan ‘Will trade racists for refugees’.
Mr King’s father Jack King – a shed salesman from Romford – moved his young family in the early 1960s to Canvey Island.
Entrepreneur and football fanatic Jack bought a failing caravan holiday park from the council and turned it into a successful mobile home business, Kings Park, which he sold for £32million in 2007, the Times reported.
King followed in his father’s footsteps and spent many years working for Jack – who also owned a taxi company, a car dealership and nightclubs hosting performers including Shirley Bassey and Tommy Cooper – before launching Clearsprings.
Most of the Kings have moved away from Canvey Island. King’s mother passed away in the 1970s while his father died in 2016.
Clearsprings has been contacted for comment.
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