Birmingham's Resi Crunch: Taylor Grange-Linked Business In Administration
Franklin Investments, formerly Taylor Grange Investments, has been placed into administration.
The latest accounts filed at Companies House revealed that the business, whose sole director and shareholder is Taylor Grange chief executive Rakesh Doal, owed £957K to Taylor Grange Developments.
Companies House paperwork also showed that Franklin Investment had charges on its assets in favour of Rockbridge Lending Limited, Stanley Laufer and Hope Capital 2 related to a site at Mary Vale Road, Bourneville, Birmingham.
Rockbridge is a U.S.-based specialist hospitality property investor, while Hope Capital is a bridge lender.
"We are in in positive talks with Hope Capital to successfully agree our extension on the refinance and successfully continue the development. This is an incident in isolation and it is business as usual across our projects," Taylor Grange Group Chief Operating Officer San Ginda told Bisnow.
Johnathan and Edward Avery-Gee of Manchester-based CG & Co. have been appointed as administrators. Bisnow approached the administrators for comment.
The Birmingham city-centre apartment market appears to be struggling despite continued developer confidence in longer-term trends. Land Registry figures show a sharp fall in the number of first registrations, the category into which apartment sales would fall. A total of 93 first registrations were made in Birmingham in February, before the lockdown, with just 29 recorded in July.
Taylor Grange Developments, a separate business, is behind a number of prominent central Birmingham residential schemes including the £120M Holloway Head development. The site of the former Trefoil House site has eluded development since the 1990s and is now slated for development as 487 PRS units by High Street Residential, described on Taylor Grange’s website as its private rental sector development partner.
UPDATED September 10, 6.26 A.M. ET: This story has been updated to include a statement from Taylor Grange, which came back to Bisnow after the story was published.
