southend_property

Restructuring and Turnarounds using formal insolvency procedures

Southend Property Holdings - Administrators

Southend was formerly part of a listed property group – the Hampton Trust. Southend was materially insolvent although its owned approximately £75m of property assets – including interests in Arena Central in Birmingham (UK).

• It had material creditors

o tax liabilities of between £18m to £20m – that had been incurred over many years with no

attempt to pay the liabilities.

o Debentures of approximately £64m, and

o Complex and very large inter company liabilities to its former holding company. However -

that had little of no audit trail showing how these liabilities arose.

• Very importantly

o There were large prior transactions that had resulted in assets being transferred out of the

Southend Group to the Hampton Group – without valuable consideration being made for the

transaction.

Our first step was to sell the tangible property assets to a connected party for value but with full sanction of creditors. Our next challenge was to find out the facts of the prior – and potentially voidable - transactions. Once we had established the facts as we saw them – we then entered into very protracted negotiations with the former holding company and its advisors. We needed to prove to them that there was a case to answer and then strike a deal that the materially cash strapped former holding company – yet satisfy the creditors that this was the best deal that could be done.

We eventually settled on an out of court settlement which obtained 100% of creditor approval - which achieved a material improvement in return to creditors.

Next >>

Restructuring &

Turnarounds

Powerplan

Global Marine Systems

Powerhouse

Orb Group

Furniture To Go

Southend Property Holdings

Turnaround Investments

Fantastic Racing

Kelso Place Asset Mgmt