Administrators called in at property developers

MAR CITY DEVELOPMENTS, the part of the Mar City family of companies that remained under the control of founders Tony and Maggie Ryan, has collapsed into administration.

It comes six months after the husband-and-wife team left the board of crisis-hit Mar City Plc. Their departures came six months after the property company which they founded in 1984 delisted from the Alternative Investment Market.

Mar City made its name in building prefab housing, specialising in modular developments.

Shay Bannon and Sarah Rayment, business restructuring partners at BDO, have been appointed joint administrators to Mar City Developments and confirmed the company has “effectively ceased to trade”.

The company’s two subsidiaries, South Staffs Group and Terngate, are not in administration and neither are Mar City, Mar City Homes or Mar City Land, which are now separately owned and managed.

Mar City Developments, based in Hockley Heath, owns the freehold interest in a number of commercial buildings in Birmingham and development sites situated in the Midlands.

In a statement, the administrators said: “The Joint Administrators will be instructing agents to market the property assets of the company. The company’s two subsidiaries, South Staffs Group Limited and Terngate Limited, have not been placed into administration whilst the joint administrators, with the assistance of the directors, undertake a strategic review of the options available to maximise stakeholder value.”

Mr and Mrs Ryan left Mar City Plc last year following a boardroom crisis that was rooted in a profit warning and the restatement of accounts.

Mar City plc, whose own accounts are now more than five months overdue, last updated its shareholders just before Christmas.

Writing then, Mar City plc’s chairman Martyn Everett said: “During 2014 the group made significant investments in development land and work in progress as part of its ambitious growth strategy. It is evident that the group has suffered because the corporate governance regime and financial controls framework have not proven sufficiently robust to handle rapid growth on the scale and volume of the developments undertaken.”

At that time he confirmed Tony and Maggie Ryan had resigned as directors but remained major shareholders.