The boss of a troubled property group has told staff he plans to appoint administrators.
Peter Hewett emailed all staff at PS&B and its sister companies Spratt and Son, Carr and Priddle and Lease X on Wednesday night telling them “I have failed”.
The email came after months of financial issues at the property companies following its bank accounts being frozen, leaving millions of pounds belonging to clients inaccessible.
This in turn led to contractors, utility companies and insurers of scores of blocks of flats being unpaid – with some blocks having electricity cut off and facing the possibility their homes were uninsured.
The company’s staff have also not been paid since April, with several staff walking out as a result earlier this month.
In Wednesday’s email, Mr Hewett said he would be appointing administrators this week and would be dealing with the paperwork on Friday – adding there was a “business partner” who wanted to ask the group’s staff with a view to asking their clients to engage them.
When approached today, Hewett told Brighton and Hove News administrators would not be appointed this week or early next week, that staff would be “transferred” next week, and as part of the restructuring process, administration would be “inevitable”.
He said previous reporting had contained inaccuracies, but declined to clarify what was wrong unless Brighton and Hove News undertook not to report anything until next week.
The email to all staff, sent on Wednesday evening by his PA, said: “We have a business partner that would like clients to engage them. If successful in their efforts, they will be approaching staff direct to engage them to deal with the clients.”
The email concluded: “I do appreciate this a very disappointing outcome and that many of you will suffer financially as a result. I have little to say that can make this better and I have done everything I can to mitigate and resolve this.
“But I have failed. That is something that I will have to live with and for that I am sorry.”
It also said that staff would not be paid for May or June, and advised them their entitlement to redundancy or outstanding wages would depend on whether they had resigned when insolvency practitioners are appointed.
According to its various websites, the companies belong to the Blue Bombini Group, which also includes Hive Client Account and Hive Secretarial.
Mr Hewett is listed as the director of several companies with names suggesting they are also part of the group on Companies House, including six with names incorporating PS&B. He declined to say exactly which companies are set to go into administration.
One of these, PS&B (Sussex) Limited, is listed on the Land Registry as the owner of the leasehold to the company’s Brighton offices in Queens Road. Mr Hewett said this was being sold in another email update sent to staff earlier this month, seen by Brighton and Hove News.
One of the companies for which he is a joint director is, Hive Company Secretarial Services Ltd, of which his wife Karen Hewett is the other director and the sole owner.
This company is also listed as director of scores more companies – many of them apparently set up to manage the freeholds but also other property companies including LeaseX Limited, C G Spratt & Son Limited, Carr Priddle Management Limited, Blue Bombini Limited and various PS&B companies.
It has two listings on Companies House – one with 86 appointments, and one with 54, both with company registration number 11362167.
Mr Hewett, who has been a director of PS&B (Sussex) since 2016 and of Blue Bombini since 2018, became the sole director of the group’s companies this year following the resignations of Michael Barber in January and Karen Baker in March.
If money has been taken from homeowners for services that have not been rendered, such as insurance, maintenance etc, yet the companies keep trading, is this not fraudulent activity?