Unpaid CEG debts amount to £36.5m
Commercial Estates Group filed for administration on 10 October, with accounts showing that after selling its assets and repaying a £25,000 bill to a preferential creditor, the company will owe the shortfall to 84 suppliers who are unlikely to be reimbursed – including a £2.5m bill to HMRC.
A report by KRE Corporate Recovery shows the company has been funded by its 66% shareholder, Dooba Finance, and has consistently made annual losses that have been supported by significant loans from the company.
CEG owes £6.8m to Dooba and also has a loan of £21.3m from Gerard Versteegh Holdings.
Nicholas Lee and CEG founder Gerard Versteegh are directors of Dooba Finance.
The report goes on to state that when Dooba withdrew its financial support, CEG started experiencing financial difficulties that were exacerbated by its inability to repay an accrued debt to HMRC that was increasing month-on-month.
Both Dooba and GVH made formal demand of the money owed to them, pushing CEG into ‘financial collapse’ and given the size of the debt, the report notes that the company was unable to refinance or restructure.
The directors of CEG contacted KRE Corporate Recovery on 25 July, appointed them on 17 September, and on 10 October Rob Keyes and David Taylor of KRE took on the case.
A sale of the company’s assets was completed on 14 October, acquired by both RPG1 Management and Dooba Finance.
The company’s assets are listed as:
- Data – £74,999
- Business name – £1
- Shares in Ampersand Homes – £100,000
- Shares in CEG B1 – £150,000
- Total: £325,000
An initial payment of £33,750 has been made, with the balance due from Dooba and GGH over 11 monthly installments.
RPG was incorporated at Companies House on 17 July and lists CEG managing director Matt Farrell and chairman Gerard Versteegh as directors, with former CEG management members Tom Gaynor, Antonia Martin Wright, and Jon Allen also involved.
In terms of employees, according to a report from Stag Advisory the company formerly had 85 members of staff, ‘a large proportion of [which] walked out of/left the business a few weeks ago, and the remaining staff have been/are due to be made redundant on appointment of the administrators’.
This would be the 32 former employees that are listed in the documents, all of which are, according to the accounts, owed £0.
In terms of next steps, KRE noted that the case will be reviewed periodically and a progress report will be published in six months.
KRE will also investigate the affairs of anyone who has been a director at the company over the last three years, as well as the business of the company itself, to decide whether civil proceedings should be taken on its behalf.
All documents are available to read in full on Companies House.
Dooba finance, Versteegh Holdings and RPG are all the same people.
By Anonymous
How should the people of Leeds have any confidence that Kirkstall Forge, or the land at Temple be brought forward and developed? KF has lay dormant since 2019, their Southbank site hasn’t progressed since the completion of Globe Point in 2021 and they have sat on Temple Works allowing it to fall into an even worse state. CEG was a management company for the same investment funds which RPG are to manage, yet we are meant to believe the same people who failed to bring forward these developments then, will bring them forward now? Give me a break.
By Anonymous
Different company same people.
By Anonymous
Forced into collapse by asking for the money back?? Asking in the mirror by the sounds of it.
By Anonymous
It’s clearly a fraud. More to come, I’m sure.
By Anonymous