Founder of Liverpool’s Signature Group banned as director after investors lost £4.8m

The founder of Liverpool-based hotel and property developer Signature Group has been banned as a company director after investors lost more than £4.8m.

 

Signature Group, often referred to as Signature Living, operated for more than seven years, buying up predominantly historic buildings within the UK for redevelopment into luxury hotels, residential apartments and office spaces.

 

It included dozens of companies and had more than 20 developments, including the Coal Exchange hotel in Cardiff, the Shankly and Dixie Dean football-themed hotels in Liverpool, and the George Best hotel in Belfast, which never opened.

 

Businessman Lawrence Kenwright had been the director of almost 100 companies, including more than 60 under the Signature brand.

 

He was also director of Signature Works Gold Limited, a seller of desk space to investors in three properties across Liverpool city centre.

 

While Signature Works Gold Limited was incorporated in January 2017, investor returns stopped being paid after September 2019.

 

Marketing material had implied that investors would gain a legal interest in the three properties they acquired desk space in, but investigators later found that the company did not own any registered freehold or leasehold interest in the aforementioned properties.

 

Instead, Kenwright was the sole shareholder of three separate companies that individually owned each property.

 

Signature Works Gold Limited was wound up in the public interest in December 2022 with assets of less than £100,000 and liabilities of £4.9m.

 

Kenwright was found to have distributed promotional material containing false and misleading information that caused significant losses for investors.

 

The Insolvency Service said that Kenwright had “failed to ensure adequate stewardship and corporate governance” of the company he directed.

 

Kenwright, now of Sankey Road, Maghull, signed a disqualification undertaking just days before he was scheduled to appear for trial following investigations by the Insolvency Service.

 

The undertaking, a legally binding agreement where directors do not dispute certain matters of unfitness alleged by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, has meant that he is banned from acting as a company director for the next five years, starting from 18 August.

 

Kevin Read, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: “Lawrence Kenwright’s failures as a company director had serious consequences for investors, who suffered losses of more than £4.8m as a result of false and misleading marketing material.

 

“While Kenwright is not accused of direct fraud, his conduct nevertheless falls well below the standards we expect of company directors.

 

“Directors have a responsibility to ensure investment information issued in their company’s name is accurate and can be relied upon.

 

“The Insolvency Service will continue to take action against directors who fail in those responsibilities, helping to maintain confidence in the UK’s business environment.”

 

In February 2024, four people were arrested as part of a £140m fraud investigation into Signature Group.