Kent & Canterbury Hospital: Atlas Partners Group Ltd
Atlas Partners Group Ltd (APG Ltd) are a company who have made their intentions known regarding the land involved in the Kent & Canterbury Super Hospital and the 2000 homes. Little though is known about them.
Much is known about the other entity interested in the land, that being Quinn Estates who proposed the idea. We know Mark Quinn has donated monies to both the Labour Party nationally and the Conservative Party at a local level. Much has been said about Mr Quinn and his companies and we do not intend to add to that here.
Returning to APG Ltd, who are they. The team is made up of 3 people. They are:
Nicholas Brown Guy Laurence Hammond Ernest Stephen Battey
Between them they have been either Directors or Company Secretary’s in at least 195 companies.
Nicholas Brown can be found in a company in the Netherlands, associated with a company registered in Gibraltar and linked to a British Virgin Island company. Three companies house profiles under Nicholas Brown and Nick Brown, one has his nationality listed as Irish. There have been and/or continue to be a total of 56 company directorships, 23 of which are now dissolved with a further 3 currently insolvent. Many of the companies have been set up by third parties or using nominee directors. There is ample evidence of unnecessarily complicated corporate structures, with one company owning another and another and Nicholas Brown, Atlas Partners Group or Redforge BVI as the ultimate beneficial owner of the final company. Nine of Brown’s companies were all dissolved in October 2018. Five of his companies went into liquidation in 2016 following the incorporation of Redforge BVI, and other companies previously profitable started making losses around this time too. Some of the companies appear to have mortgages secured on properties reported to be owned by his other companies. As well as the BVI company Redforge Ltd we know about, it looks like another company BROWN was a director of has an ultimate beneficial owner registered in Gibraltar (IDM LAND LTD. (03745163)). It would also appear that fellow directors in some of the companies Nick sits also have Politically Exposed Person connections.
In October 2018 when a bunch of Nick’s companies went into liquidation he also paid off the mortgage on The White Lion Cheriton, this mortgage was with Kent County Homes Ltd which has been dormant since 2009. We are not 100% sure what exactly went down in October 2018, but something happened. One of Nick’s only Active company appointments with Commercial Concerns Ltd, has been carrying a £3m loss since 2014, although in the company accounts it looks like they sold £3.5m in assets in 2016.
We can’t figure out where Nick is getting his money from as we have failed to find a company making profit! It all seems very weird!
Moving onto Guy Laurence Hammond, the APG Ltd website states:
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Guy Hammond has considerable experience in the banking and property development sectors and a key understanding of their individual requirements.
However, in May 2004 a Notice to Creditors appear on the London Gazette, which makes clear Guy was made Bankrupt. It is not illegal to be a bankrupt, but it is in our humble opinion poor show from a finance guru!
Guy has been a director in 51 companies and only two of these 51 companies are active and live, they are:
Ernest Stephen Battey is or has been a director in 84 companies and only 12 of these directorships are active according to companies house. Ernest appears to a have national reach with property/investment interests. Allegations have been made against him in the media regarding ‘dodgy’ land deals.
Now the strange thing is Nicholas Brown sits in a company by the name of Atlas Partners (Sydenham) Ltd, with a gentleman called Alexander Prisyazhynuk. Prisyazhynuk holds both Russian and British nationality so we understand. Prisyazhynuk also holds a 25% share in the land at the old Newtown Railway Works (Ashford) recently bought by Quinn Estates Newtown Works Ltd, according to the land register. The land cost £5 million, so Alex’s share is £1.25 million. Mr Quinn’s share is £2.5 million according to various sources.
Prisyazhynuk is a board member of the LSR Group. LSR is a Russian real estate development, construction and building materials company, one of the leaders in the real estate and building materials in Russia. The company is headquartered in St. Petersburg (Russia).
None of those mentioned have done anything wrong as far as we can determine. But, when it comes to APG Ltd and their desire to potentially build 2000 homes and a new super hospital, or just to acquire the land and pump the price up for any potential development, you need to know who your dealing with.
We know about Mr Quinn and we now know something about APG Ltd, whose directors are linked to offshore tax jurisdictions, Gibraltar and the British Virgin Islands. So if a choice had to be made, who would we currently wish to develop the land and build 2000 new homes and a new super hospital? Well, we’ll keep our thoughts to ourselves, but we’ll let you consider the facts before you and make up your own mind.
The Shepwayvox Team
Dissent is NOT a Crime
The Shepwayvox Team really should go into the due diligence game. You are very good at it. Thanks, this is very useful to me and my company.
Having dealt with APG Ltd, I would not recommend doing business with them. If our company would have known this information prior to doing business with them we would not have gone in with them.
Also as above the Shepwayvox Team really should seriously consider going into the due diligence game, my company would have paid for such information. Lesson learnt the hard way. Now we due diligence.
I have also had the ‘joy’ of having worked with APG and again would warn anyone thinking of conducting business with them to give it careful consideration. Appointed to assist with a troublesome situation for which APG had found themselves, neither ourselves, or as far as Im aware any other business who assisted on the project, received anything in the way of remittance. The then company was subsequently phoenixed so this or may not account for the high number of dissolved companies. Unfortunately the nature of the construction industry often results in separate companies being set up per project, which in turn affords poor results during any due diligence process. We have never before or since experienced anything like APG, so Good work Shepwayvox.