Director disqualified over land deals
THE former head of a Lancashire property business has been disqualified as a director for seven years following an investigation by the Insolvency Service.
Timothy Wren, of Omskirk, ran Land Banking (UK) which bought agricultural land then divided plots into smaller strips for re-sale, often at inflated values.
The business claimed that planning permission to develop the land was likely to be granted resulting in a “10-fold increase in value” for investors.
The company raised over £3.5m from the sale of over 300 plots of land on five sites at Chesterfield, Knowsley, Nantwich and Uttoxeter. It started trading in November 2005 before being ordered into liquidation in February 2008.
Mr Wren accepted that the misconduct identified by the Insolvency Service’s Companies Investigation Branch made him unfit to be a company director.
The investigation found that he had continued to sell plots already sold, despite an undertaking to stop and failed to keep proper accounting records.
He also paid £300,000 “drawings” to himself in addition to his wages of £50,000 in contravention of section 263 of the Companies Act 1985.
