Angelgate developer to be liquidated

Collapsed developer Pinnacle Angelgate will be liquidated following the sale of its long-stalled site in Manchester to Far East Consortium, with legal recovery action against the company to be launched within the next three months.

Pinnacle’s plans for the site off Dantzic Street were for a £77m, 344-home scheme over two towers. Work started on site but ground to a halt in 2016 after the project’s original contractor, PHD1, entered administration.

The developer called in administrators from Moore Stephens in September last year owing its creditors around £30m. The site was then sold by Pinnacle’s administrators at auction in April this year, and was snapped up by FEC for £5.2m. The sale was completed on 13 July.

Moore Stephens estimated the sale of the site is likely to leave investors with 21.5p in the pound while unsecured creditors will receive nothing – this is likely to leave buyers £23.7m out of pocket. To date, Moore Stephens has received nearly £26m in claims from buyers, although a decision has not yet been made on how to distribute any proceeds of the site’s sale to buyers.

Moore Stephens has now opted to end its administration of Pinnacle Angelgate and is instead seeking a creditors’ voluntary liquidation; the administration ended on 27 September this year, with Moore Stephens now becoming liquidators of the company.

The liquidator said it had now made “an appropriate submission on the actions of the directors” to the disqualification unit of the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, although the nature of this report cannot be disclosed.

Carl Mills is listed as the sole director of Pinnacle Angelgate at Companies House. Moore Stephens said it had continued to investigate the company’s dealings in the three years prior to its appointment as administrator, with eight other individuals identified as “potential associates” to Mills.

Moore Stephens said it had met with four of these to date, while “two of the remaining four have only recently been identified and the other two have not yet attended to our requests”.

Investigations into the ultimate beneficial owner of Pinnacle and its parent company MVG Holdings, are still continuing, according to the liquidators. Convicted conman Tony Freeman has been linked to the Angelgate development, and while Pinnacle confirmed that Freeman was a “consultant that strategically advises the Pinnacle Alliance board of directors” but “does not own Pinnacle and is not a director of Pinnacle”.

Moore Stephens is also continuing to liaise with Pinnacle’s solicitors and advisors to determine the ultimate owner of its parent company.

According to previous administrators’ reports, Pinnacle Angelgate had withdrawn £28.7m of buyers’ money without determining how this had been spent.

Pinnacle Angelgate is a special purpose vehicle for developer Pinnacle, which continues to trade. Another of company’s businesses, Pinnacle Student Developments Liverpool, entered administration earlier this year, owing £12m to its creditors, while another two companies, Pinnacle Student Developments and Pinnacle Residential Liverpool, also entered administration in April.