Four Seasons Healthcare, the heavily indebted UK care homes company, is set to be sold, after its lenders failed to agree to a restructuring process for the group, which looks after 15,000 people in 400 homes.

The decision to move towards a sale was triggered late on Monday evening, when the requisite number of the company’s lenders failed to agree to a debt-for-equity swap that would have restructured £1.5bn ($2.4bn) of debt.