Nottingham hotel firm comes back from the dead
A Nottingham hotel company is being brought back to life by administrators after being mis-sold to by The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
Administrators from Smith Cooper in Derby have taken control of The Lace Market Hotel Limited – now reinstated at Companies House as Company No. 03726341 – to consider an interest rate hedge product (IRHP) redress offer made from RBS.
The purpose of an interest rate hedging product (IRHP) is to enable the customer to manage fluctuations in interest rates. These products are typically separate to a loan.
The ‘original’ Lace Market Hotel Ltd (Reg No. 03726341) went into a pre-pack administration in 2012. The business and assets were sold back to one of the original directors, there was no payment to unsecured creditors and the company was dissolved and struck-off the register on 4 April 2013.
The current Lace Market Hotel Ltd (Reg No. 09792631) was only incorporated on 24th September 2015 and the current company running the hotel in Nottingham.
An insolvency expert told TheBusinessDesk.com: “The decision to restore the original company to the register would mean that the name would necessarily have to be changed as you can’t have two companies extant on the register.
“The restoration presumably required the former administrator(s) to also be re-instated as the company would have no director, as it would be restored to its position at the date of dissolution.
“Importantly, as far as I can see, this action has nothing to do with the current Lace Market Hotel Ltd, so no inference as to the current solvency of the hotel can be drawn from it.”
RBS were unavailable for comment this morning, but the bank’s website states that it has a review panel that will look into cases of firm’s which think they have been mis-sold IRHP.
The mis-selling of IRHP has been under review by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) since May 2013. Nine banks are reviewing their sales of the product: Allied Irish Bank (UK); Bank of Ireland; Barclays; Clydesdale & Yorkshire Banks; Co-operative Bank; HSBC; Lloyds Banking Group; Royal Bank of Scotland; and Santander UK.
The FCA says the banks have nearly completed their reviews, having sent a redress determination letter to 18,100 businesses and paid £2.2bn in redress, including around £500m to deal with consequential losses.
