Former newspaper tycoon Richard Desmond lost some £20m on his investment in online estate agency, according to a Sunday newspaper report.
Desmond, former owner of the Daily Express, had invested in Tepilo, the online agency founded by TV property presenter Sarah Beeny.
Emoov merged with Tepilo, and also online lettings business Urban, in May last year.
The deal was said to have created a £100m group but it went into administration months later, with Emoov founder Russell Quirk saying that investment funding he had been expecting to come through had not materialised.
Accounts now filed by Desmond’s company Northern & Shell show it took an impairment charge of £12.9m when the Emoov group went into administration, the Sunday Telegraph has reported.
Northern & Shell was also left with a £5m share of the losses plus £1.1m of goodwill amortisation and had to write off a £2.5m loan.
The accounts say that in 2017, it had bought £1.5m worth of shares in Tepilo.
Last year it sold its entire shareholding “for a consideration of shares in Emoov Limited”.
Emoov went into administration early last December.
As at the end of last year, according to its accounts, Northern & Shell still held interests in Emoov, Tepilo Holdings and Tepilo Limited, and also in online lettings agency OpenRent.
Emoov was subsequently sold out of administration in January to Mashroom.
Comments (4)
So who or what is now going to put the additional money in to Purplebricks, YOPA or Housesimple to keep these loss-making outfits going?
Well there are very few people who have taken Richard Desmond for a ride.He usually comes out of a situation with the better part of the deal.
RussellQuirk now seeking to expand his public relations operation Properganda must be slightly relieved Desmond sold the majority of his media interests to Trinity Mirror last year .
However I should imagine he is still a big influencer.
Russell Quirk should take note though that Desmond once said
As s good a friend I am, I am the worst enemy you’ll ever have.””
In a court case Richard Desmond over money lost
“The problem is it’s on my mind you see. It doesn’t matter if it was 75 grand or 75 million, it’s on my mind all the time.”
These people made their money somehow, probably through good business plan, or maybe they just got lucky. Amazing how someone like this was fooled by someone else who was basically making stuff up.
‘Fools and their money’…….