Avison Young Had Assets Frozen By Bank Over Unpaid Taxes
Avison Young’s cash flow issues are catching up to its UK companies.
The brokerage and advisory firm persuaded a judge on Thursday to unfreeze its UK accounts, which NatWest Group had locked after Avison Young failed to pay taxes, Bloomberg reported.
The bank froze the accounts in response to a winding-up petition — which involves applying to a court to force a company to liquidate — from UK tax authority His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.
The Toronto-based brokerage estimated that it owed HMRC more than £7.7M ($10.4M) by the end of July. Avison Young has entered into four payment plans known as time-to-pay arrangements with HMRC over the past two years.
“Even though the companies have the funds to pay the petition debts, they are unable to do so because the bank accounts have been frozen,” lawyers for the brokerage said in written arguments reported by Bloomberg.
During the Thursday hearing, Judge Sebastian Prentis ordered NatWest to unfreeze the assets, saying that the bank’s move had blocked Avison Young’s ability to pay HMRC what it owes.
“Our finance team had been in regular dialogue with HMRC regarding the prior tax obligation and Avison Young can confirm that all outstanding obligations to HMRC have been paid,” an Avison Young spokesperson told Bisnow in an email Friday.
Avison Young has struggled with cash flow issues since 2022, when interest rate hikes sent real estate deal volumes plummeting as buyers and sellers disagreed on asset pricing.
But even as deal volume in Europe picked up in the final quarter of 2025, reaching €90B ($103.6B), the Iran conflict slowed dealmaking in Q1 to just €50B ($57.5B) worth of transactions, according to MSCI data. The most recent quarter’s total was slightly lower, at €49.4B ($56.9B), Bloomberg reported.
The past few years have been streaked with debt difficulties and legal troubles for Avison Young.
Private equity investment firm ICG is suing the brokerage in the UK, claiming that Avison Young negligently overvalued mobile home sites to caravan company RoyaleLife, which folded in 2023. The brokerage denied that ICG had made a loss and argued that if a loss had occurred, it should be attributed to ICG's own negligence.
The firm also announced in mid-2025 that it had cut jobs in the UK for a second consecutive year, after incurring £100M ($134.6M) in losses in 2023 and 2024 in its British and European businesses, CityAM previously reported.
In the U.S., S&P downgraded the brokerage in 2024 after it withheld payments on a $325M senior term loan for two quarters running. It restructured the debt, which Avison Young CEO Mark Rose told Bisnow at the time freed up the company to reinvest in the business.
Avison Young had taken out the senior loan in 2019 to acquire UK brokerage firm GVA Grimley and to pay down debt set to mature in 2021. It also entered into a $60M revolving credit facility and took on a $65M equity investment from Canadian pension fund Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec at the same time.
The company last year raised $27M of senior debt on the bond market, which S&P Global gave a junk bond rating of CCC+. The company's credit rating was kept at CCC with a negative outlook in April 2025, but that rating was withdrawn in January at Avison Young's request, according to S&P.
