Magnolia Court Development Company in Liquidation

Acton site in limbo after Cadenza runs into trouble

A large property development company, Cadenza, which owns land in Pierrepoint Road - formerly a care home - has gone into liquidation.

Magnolia Court, the 37-bedroom care home had already been demolished when Cadenza purchased the land. The company then obtained permission to build "six substantial villa-style semi-detached houses".

The property company is run by Tony Pidgley Jr, the property entrepreneur and son of Berkeley Group founder Tony Pidgley.

Cadenza, which was set up by Mr Pidgley Jr in 2001 after his dramatic departure from the board of Berkeley amid family conflict, was put into voluntary liquidation on March 14th.

The housebuilder ran into trouble after Heritable Bank, a UK subsidiary of Landsbanki, the Icelandic bank, which was supposed to provide funding for two Cadenza developments, went into receivership last year.

Mr Pidgley Jr told The Times: “We were in a very difficult situation where our bank was unable to fulfil its funding commitments. The bank’s administrators ripped up our agreements. I tried to refinance with a number of other banks, but you just can’t refinance. The real issue is that the bank is in administration and the failure of the bank is unprecedented.”

Valentine & Co have been appointed as liquidators of Cadenza.

The company attracted publicity in its early days after Mr Pidgley Jr used it to mount a £1 billion takeover bid for Berkeley Homes, which his father founded in 1976. Mr Pidgley Sr apparently found out about the buyout plan only after it was leaked to a newspaper. The former Barnardo’s baby, who was adopted at the age of four by a gypsy couple, has also seen off an attempted buyout by Guy Hands.

Cadenza, which specialised in urban regeneration and redeveloped sites, including the Bristol Brewery, hit problems with its Acton site – and another near the Oval in Kennington. The company had sold all its other developments in the past 12 months.

March 26, 2009