Investors step in to take control of Elliot’s £70m Liverpool hotel 

A consortium of investors has exchanged contracts on the stalled 306-bedroom hotel project on Norfolk Street. 

Last year, receiver David Currie & Co was brought in to sell the 16-storey Baltic Triangle building on behalf of charge holder Virtuoso Investments, a company based in the Seychelles that had invested in the scheme. 

In March, administrators HBG Insolvency were drafted in to speed up the sale process. 

Now, a group of investors has taken control of the £70m project and intends to build it out. 

“When my schemes were placed in administration I made a promise that I would work ceaselessly to help secure each site’s sale and protect the interests of investors,” Elliot Lawless said. 

“What this latest deal reinforces is that my projects were always very good schemes in prime locations.  I’ll take considerable satisfaction from seeing them completed.  If you take a look at the outstanding job done by the investors who bought Aura in Liverpool, for example, you can see that the original vision for each project can still be delivered in the right hands.” 

Four Elliot Group projects were placed into administration when Lawless was arrested in late 2019 as part of Operation Aloft, a Merseyside Police probe into corruption. 

Lawless has not been charged and denies wrongdoing. A search of his home by Merseyside Police was declared unlawful in April 2020. 

The hotel sale is the last of the four stalled Elliot schemes to find a buyer. Aura, a £100m student accommodation scheme was bought by investors last October. 

Earlier this week Place North West revealed Legacie Developments had exchanged contracts to buy The Residence in Salford, a part completed 300-apartment development, and Infinity in Liverpool. Infinity is made of of three towers and will comprise more than 1,000 homes once complete. 

“The process [for Norfolk Street], as with the other administrations, has been handled by a third party under strict rules and I sympathise with investors whose bids for The Residence and Infinity weren’t successful,” Elliot said. 

“It has not been easy but with flexibility and good will on all sides the administrators have been able to ensure that all of my stalled projects will now be placed in the hands of new owners and move forward to completion.”