Lloyd Webber’s property Really Useful

News

18 January 1986

Really Useful own half the freehold of the Palace Theatre at Cambridge Circus, London WC2, which they bought from Stock Conversion in August 1983 for £1.3m. The other half was bought by Sarastone, a company owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the group intend to buy his share for £975,000 with proceeds from the flotation. The flotation money will also be used to repay borrowings of £645,000 secured on the other half and for the proposed refurbishment of the theatre.

A non-executive director of Really Useful, Sir Richard Baker Wilbraham, is a director of Schroders, who are the group’s merchant bankers for the flotation, and of Brixton Estate.

Really Useful are based at 20 Greek Street, W1, a Soho property on which they pay £22,500 pa to a pension fund, administered by Schroders. The sole beneficiary of that fund is Mr Lloyd Webber.

In Mr Lloyd Webber’s early years, another property figure was prominent in his life — Sefton Myers, who, with his father Bernard, built up the Rodwell Group, which was later sold to English Property Corporation. Sefton’s half-brother, Martin, now chairman and chief executive of Arbuthnot Properties, said: “Sefton’s hobby was backing pop groups. At one time he had three or four.

“It started with Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber when they came to see him in his capacity as a property developer. They had an idea for a pop museum, which he thought was the worst idea he had ever heard in his life. But he took them on as musicians and they never looked back.

“At this stage, Rice and Lloyd Webber had written Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Sefton enabled them to write Jesus Christ Superstar by paying them a living wage while they were doing it. Sefton sold his interest in Jesus Christ Superstar to Robert Stigwood shortly before he died. There’s no connection now between my family and Lloyd Webber except for a sentimental one.”

As share applications closed this week for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group — oversubscribed one-and-a-half times at a striking price of 330p — it should be remembered that the company, who hold the rights to the musicals Cats and Starlight Express, among others, are not without their property interests too. Really Useful own half the freehold of the Palace Theatre at Cambridge Circus, London WC2, which they bought from Stock Conversion in August 1983 for £1.3m. The other half was bought by Sarastone, a company owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the group intend to buy his share for £975,000 with proceeds from the flotation. The flotation money will also be used to repay borrowings of £645,000 secured on the other half and for the proposed refurbishment of the theatre. A non-executive director of Really Useful, Sir Richard Baker Wilbraham, is a director of Schroders, who are the group’s merchant bankers for the flotation, and of Brixton Estate. Really Useful are based at 20 Greek Street, W1, a Soho property on which they pay £22,500 pa to a pension fund, administered by Schroders. The sole beneficiary of that fund is Mr Lloyd Webber. In Mr Lloyd Webber’s early years, another property figure was prominent in his life — Sefton Myers, who, with his father Bernard, built up the Rodwell Group, which was later sold to English Property Corporation. Sefton’s half-brother, Martin, now chairman and chief executive of Arbuthnot Properties, said: “Sefton’s hobby was backing pop groups. At one time he had three or four. “It started with Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber when they came to see him in his capacity as a property developer. They had an idea for a pop museum, which he thought was the worst idea he had ever heard in his life. But he took them on as musicians and they never looked back. “At this stage, Rice and Lloyd Webber had written Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Sefton enabled them to write Jesus Christ Superstar by paying them a living wage while they were doing it. Sefton sold his interest in Jesus Christ Superstar to Robert Stigwood shortly before he died. There’s no connection now between my family and Lloyd Webber except for a sentimental one.”