Gavin Woodhouse has lost control of three of his companies after a judge ruled that his business model appeared to be “thoroughly dishonest” and a “shameful abuse of the privileges of limited liability trading”.

The moves come a week after publication of an undercover investigation by the Guardian and ITV News, which posed questions about the business interests of Woodhouse, who has raised more than £80m from private investors but whose firms have a multimillion-pound “black hole”.

At a high court hearing on Thursday, brought by creditors seeking to place three Woodhouse businesses into interim administration, Judge Sally Barber said: “This appears to be a thoroughly dishonest business model and a shameful abuse of the privileges of limited liability trading. I am entirely satisfied by the evidence before me that this court must take immediate action.”

Limited liability is a legal structure that means business owners’ private assets are not at risk when a company fails.

Barber ordered that two Woodhouse care home businesses – MBI Clifton Moor Ltd and MBI Hawthorn Care Ltd – along with the entrepreneur’s planned £200m adventure resort, Afan Valley Ltd, be placed instantly into interim administration.

Powers that Woodhouse possessed as a director were immediately removed and administrators from the insolvency firm Duff & Phelps will take over the running of the companies until a full hearing. At that point, Barber said, the companies “should be under no misapprehension as to their fate”, when they will end up in some form of insolvency.

The judge said: “This is not just insolvency [it is] what has been going on behind the curtain of limited liability. These intercompany loans [have been] written off in their millions. This is investors’ money.”

Last week the Guardian and ITV News revealed how Woodhouse, who is launching his outdoor adventure resort in south Wales with the support of the celebrity adventurer Bear Grylls, had raised millions of pounds about five years ago from private investors to fund four care homes – none of which are operational and three of which have not been built.

Millions of pounds from those stalled care home projects were loaned to another company in which Woodhouse owns 60% of the shares but that company has gone into administration and the cash appears to have vanished.

Investors have grown increasingly concerned about their money and Woodhouse admits that he has fallen behind paying their scheduled returns.

Woodhouse did not appear personally in court but his barrister said that he had not had sufficient time to respond in detail to the application for an administration order, while he argued that the matters did not need dealing with urgently by the court.

Barber said: “These are serious, serious, matters which your client has to respond to in his witness statement [but has not] … They are not unsubstantiated. They are based fairly and squarely on the company’s own records.”

She added: “I do not accept that submission [that the case is not urgent]. Ordinary members of the public have collectively invested millions of pounds into three companies. They have been led to believe that their investment monies were ringfenced and used only for particular projects. This was untrue.

“Instead their monies were paid out, often by so-called intercompany loans to other companies under the same ownership, with little or no prospect of recovery. In a number of cases such loans, running into millions, have been written off as irrecoverable already.”

A third care home company – MBI Walsden Care Ltd – avoided an interim administration order as it is no longer trading. The company is owned by Woodhouse but he is not a director. The firm’s sole director pledged to the court that assets would not be dissipated and the business’s records safeguarded.

Woodhouse’s barrister declined to comment on her client’s behalf in court. Woodhouse denies any wrongdoing. He has previously said that investors’ money is held in bank accounts and that he would build the outstanding care homes.