Tracey Island anyone ??

johnboy


Joined: 19/05/2008
Posts: 170

Message Posted:
17/01/2009 15:00

Anthea turner loses BTL Empire - Daily Mail



TV presenter Anthea Turner’s husband has handed over his property empire to a bank, becoming the latest high-profile victim of the credit crunch.

Grant Bovey’s Imagine Homes, once Britain’s largest buy-to-let business, has been taken over by HBoS.

Mr Bovey, 47, is now just a consultant to a new company called Imagine Homes



A source said Mr Bovey had been hit hard by the ‘shattering’ of everything he had built up. ‘Grant believed his company was arguably the biggest in his sector in the country and to see that shattered is upsetting. He would be inhuman not to be upset.

‘But he had to do it. It was for strategic reasons, giving the new company a clean piece of paper to go forward. It is unbelievable what has happened to the buy-to-let sector and this had to be done to protect the brand.’

It is a remarkable fall from grace for Mr Bovey, who in 2005 thought nothing of spending millions of pounds all over the country, including Wapping

johnboy


Joined: 19/05/2008
Posts: 170

Message Posted:
17/01/2009 15:03

including Wapping, Woolwich and Kew in London and Manchester city centre, making some of the biggest property purchases ever seen.

Six months ago, he reacted furiously to suggestions that financial difficulties had led him and Ms Turner, 48, to cancel their annual summer charity ball.

He said: ‘I am sitting in our £5million chateau in Megeve in the Alps. I will sue anyone who says that Imagine Homes is in financial difficulty. We are 20 per cent owned by HBoS and we have huge profits that have yet to materialise.’

But that was before the credit crunch began to bite.

Imagine Homes buys properties from developers, fits them out and sells them on to investors with guaranteed rental income, also taking a management fee of ten per cent of the rent for two years. At one point, Mr Bovey spoke of his hopes of a £1billion turnover.

But house sales have fallen dramatically and the Council of Mortgage Lenders suggests gross mortgage lending is down 20 per cent year-on-year.

Imagine Homes

johnboy


Joined: 19/05/2008
Posts: 170

Message Posted:
17/01/2009 15:04

Imaging Homes and HBOS declined to comment.

cronos


Joined: 26/10/2008
Posts: 2093

Message Posted:
17/01/2009 16:49

It couldn't happen to a nicer bloke !





*mutters something about reaping and sowing *