Nelson and Bakewell: £100m venture collapses

The founding partners of Nelson Bakewell have fallen victim to the downturn. A company run by seasoned investors Phillip Nelson and Simon Bakewell has been put into administration after breaching a loan agreement when it failed to sell £100m worth of property. The highly geared Westport Land is part of the Trehaven Group that is operated by Nelson and Bakewell, alongside fellow directors William Woodward-Fisher and former NB agent Charles Allison. Trehaven and its other companies are unaffected.   Westport arranged a £95m loan from Capmark Bank Europe, previously GMAC Commercial Mortgage Bank, in early 2006. Its accounts for the year to 31 December 2006 show that it accumulated around £100m of assets. But a proposed sale of those assets collapsed last year and when Westport was unable to refinance its debt, it fell in breach of its loan agreement. Malcolm Shierson, partner at Grant Thornton, which is handling Westport’s administration, said: “Part of the debt was scheduled to be refinanced in September, but that became a victim of the credit crunch. That failure amounted to a breach.” Grant Thornton is already in talks with prospective purchasers for Westport’s six properties, mostly offices in the South West. “There has obviously been an adjustment in values, which means that this is unlikely to be an isolated situation,” said Shierson. Bakewell said: “This has been very disappointing for us as the timing seems to have been most unfortunate. Let’s hope that the administration achieves what the bank and indeed we would like to see.”    Nelson and Bakewell are now external shareholders in agency Nelson Bakewell, which rebranded as NB Real Estate last year. They own around 16% of the agent.   Westport’s other directors were John Chalk and Roger Davies. Two others, Oliver Burge and Michael Maskey, resigned in 2007. For further details on Westport’s portfolio, see Saturday’s Estates Gazette. julia.cahill@rbi.co.uk