Liverpool hotel and property entrepreneur Lawrence Kenwright is banned from being a company director for five years after investors lost £4.8m after one of his ventures ‘distributed false and misleading marketing material’. Tony McDonough reports
Liverpool entrepreneur Lawrence Kenwright is banned from being a company director for five years, the Government’s Insolvency Service has announced.
Kenwright was one of the city’s most high profile developers during the 2010s. As the founder of the Signature Group he opened several hotels including 30 James Street in the former White Star headquarters and the Shankly and Dixie Dean hotels in Victoria Street.
In all he was a director of more than 100 companies. One of them – Signature Works Gold Limited, of which he was the sole director – was found by the Insolvency Service to have “distributed false and misleading marketing material”. Investors lost £4.8m on the venture.
Signature Works Gold, incorporated in January 2017, sold desk space to investors in three Liverpool city centre properties – The Bling Bling Building in Hanover Street, Arthouse Hotel on Seel Street, and 60 Old Hall Street.
This company would rent out the working space to members of the public with the rental income intended to fund returns to investors. However, investor returns stopped being paid after September 2019.
Marketing material stated or implied that investors would gain a legal interest, registered at Land Registry, in the three properties they acquired desk space in.
In reality, investigators found that Signature Works Gold did not own any registered freehold or leasehold interest in any of the three properties.
All three were instead owned by separate companies (Signature Hanover Street Limited; Signature Living Arthouse Square Ltd; Signature Living Residential Ltd) of which Kenwright was the sole shareholder.
Although the marketing material referred to Signature Works Gold being part of the wider group of Signature companies, it was not part of the legal group structure. Kenwright was the connection across the companies, being the main or only shareholder, thus giving them common ownership.
When Signature Works Gold Limited was wound up, it had assets of less than £100,000 and liabilities of more than £4,8m, reflecting the scale of the losses suffered by investors.
The Insolvency Service found that Kenwright had “failed to ensure adequate stewardship and corporate governance” of the company he directed.
Kenwright, aged 60, now of Sankey Road, Maghull signed a disqualification undertaking just days before he was due to appear for trial following investigations by the Insolvency Service.
This undertaking – a legally binding agreement where directors do not dispute certain matters of unfitness alleged by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade – means he is banned from acting as a company director for the next five years.
Signature Works Gold was wound up in the public interest in December 2022 after Insolvency Service investigations into the company uncovered concerns about investors being misled.
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Kevin Read, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: “Lawrence Kenwright’s failures as a company director had serious consequences for investors, who suffered losses of more than £4.8m as a result of false and misleading marketing material.
“While Kenwright is not accused of direct fraud, his conduct nevertheless falls well below the standards we expect of company directors.”
The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade accepted a disqualification undertaking from Kenwright, and his ban started on Tuesday, August 18.
It prevents him from being involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company, without the permission of the court.