Creditor Claims Mount Up Against Developer In Administration
A development firm that went into administration last year owes creditors more than £21M after a big spike in claims against it, according to a new report from administrators.
Partners from MHA MacIntyre Hudson said this week that the amount creditors claimed they were owed by micro-flat specialist Inspired Asset Management has risen from £12M to £21M, after they received an unexpected claim.
The administration of Inspired is no ordinary case of insolvency. The company was put into administration on 30 August last year and just before that, on 24 August, the director and main shareholder in question, Chief Executive Martin Skinner, crashed his red Porsche 911 GT into a tree at high speed while under the influence of cocaine.
Worthing Magistrate’s Court heard last year that Skinner crashed at such high speed the engine flew out of the car, according to multiple media reports of the case. His passenger, a 30-year-old woman, had asked him to slow down in the rainy conditions, and was left with brain injuries that put her in an induced coma.
Skinner pleaded guilty to charges of careless driving and failing to provide a specimen for analysis and on 4 September was sentenced to 22 weeks in prison and banned from driving until 2022. He was released in November after serving half his sentence. He was declared bankrupt in December.
MHA said in its progress report to creditors that it had received a £14M claim from Gemini Credit Investments, a high-yield lender from which Inspired raised money in the months before it went into administration.
MHA said it could not say whether creditors would be repaid any of the money owed, but pointed out that the shares Inspired owned in developments did not appear to have much value, because the schemes were worth less than the debt secured against them.
Inspired still owns shares in a 41-apartment scheme called Abbeville Place in Clapham, but the sale of remaining units is unlikely to cover the debt owed.
It also owns shares in a 235-apartment office-to-residential conversion in Croydon and a 78-unit build-to-rent scheme in Crawley, Sussex, but again, lenders have already taken over these developments and the administrators said there is unlikely to be any return from them.
