LPC homes under the hammer
A NUMBER of residential properties developed by Manchester-based LPC Living are set to be sold off at auction in London next week.
The Apple tower block on Oldham Road and the Lakeside Villas & Apartments scheme at Blackley, north Manchester, are both due to be auctioned off at a commercial property auction being held by Jones Lang LaSalle at Le Meridien Hotel in London on May 3.
The Apple building is a partnership with Manchester City Council which was launched in 2005 when LPC Living converted a high-rise tower into affordable housing for teachers. It currently produces rents of £327,240 per year and is expected to fetch £3.15m for the long leasehold.
Lakeside Villas was launched in 2004 as a £27m development containing 211 one, two and three-bed apartments as well as 40 three-bed townhouses. The refits were carried out over a two-year period and by summer 2006 over 90% of the scheme had sold off-plan.
Nine apartments at the scheme and 23 of the town houses have been placed in the auction as a package with an asking price of £1.6m. The properties currently produce rent of £219,490 per annum.
Newly-filed accounts for LPC Living, which is currently working on the Radclyffe Park mixed-use scheme in Ordsall, show that pre-tax losses shrunk to £537,123 in the year to April 30, 2011 (2010: £4.6m loss).
This was partly due to a huge increase in turnover as work on the £50m Radclyffe Park scheme moved closer to completion- up to £13.5m, from £2.5m in 2010.
Moreover, write-downs in the carrying value of previously-developed schemes also reduced to £267,333 (£1.6m) and write-offs in the carrying value of an unrecoverable loan made to subsidiary firm LPC Aviation also fell to £422,422 (£1.7m).
LPC Living is owned by property investor Pervaiz Naviede through a Guernsey-based company, Okur Properties. During the year, it underwent a reorganisation which saw it sell off five of its historic properties to sister firms also owned by Okur in deals which allowed it to pay off its debt.
Block D at Hulton Square was sold for £2.3m, properties at Lakeside Rise were transferred for £3.5m, properties at its Freshfields scheme near Moston in north Manchester were transferred for almost £2.7m and properties at its Parklands scheme at Kirkby in north Liverpool were sold for £770,388.
As a result of the sales, LPC Living’s net debt dropped from £22.8m to less than £3.4m. However, the company’s net liabilities widened by its year end to £13.3m (£12.7m).
An analysis of transactions with related companies shows that around £15.8m of the £23.8m it owes to creditors is owed to businesses owned by Mr Naviede.
Since its year end, LPC also sold a portfolio of ground rents on properties to a third party in a £1.1m deal.
