A company owned by a ‘rave king’ millionaire who hosted lavish parties for royals and celebrities on the A-list has failed due to almost £ 1.4 million in debt, MailOnline can reveal.
The flamboyant entrepreneur James Perkins entertained eleven stars such as Noel Gallagher, Kate Moss, Madonna and Bono at his £ 20 million luxury home.
But now it has emerged that he has placed his party firm Perkins Estates Limited in voluntary liquidation which has left a string of creditors out of pocket.
The party firm Perkins Estates Limited went into voluntary liquidation, leaving a string of creditors out of pocket. Pictured: ‘Rave king’ millionaire James Perkins with his wife Sophie Taylor
The flamboyant entrepreneur Perkins once entertained stars such as Noel Gallagher, Kate Moss, Madonna and Bono at his £ 20 million luxury home
Insolvency experts said the party was abruptly halted by Covid, leading to the cancellation of weddings and celebrations while taking up debt.
A recently published report reveals that liquidators apparently will not be repaid a single cent.
Liquidator Rob Keyes said: “They were undoubtedly a victim of the pandemic.”
The biggest debt is a whopping £ 780,000 handed over by a government-backed coronavirus loan scheme.
The money is owed to HSBC Bank along with a further £ 150,000 while the loan company Lombard is owed £ 76,598.
Smaller trade creditors could lose £ 115,632. This includes a catering company that owed £ 51,000, while a cleaning company will lose £ 16,543.
Taxpayers will also lose with HMRC owing £ 71,920 in unpaid VAT, PAYE and national insurance contributions, while a further £ 5,638 is also owed in corporation tax.
The report said: ‘The initial assessment was compared and the joint liquidators did not identify any further assets or actions that could lead to a story for creditors.’
It added: “It is not expected that a distribution will be made to any class of creditor.”
This comes despite the fact that Mr. Perkins raised £ 4.1m from the sale of treasures he packed into Aynhoe Park, a spectacular 28-bedroom mansion in Northamptonshire.
Mr Perkins also owns separate businesses with assets of more than £ 2 million.
Mr. Perkins, 53, started planning parties as a teenager, throwing raves at stately homes for more than 22,000 people at 22.
A time as a record maker followed, after which he became a real estate developer.
His most high-profile project came after he bought and restored Aynhoe Park.
He stuffed the property with an eccentric array of antiques and artwork and ran the country house as a luxury wedding and party venue.
Famous celebrants, including pop star Noel Gallagher, supermodel Kate Moss, Madonna and U2 frontman Bono, danced until dawn to people like Duran Duran, surrounded by stuffed zebras and a £ 125,000 flying giraffe hung from glass balloons.
The property also played host to royals while Mick Jagger’s daughter Jade got married at home and Cara Delevingne spent a Christmas there with her family.
Mr Perkins also married his long-term partner Sophie, 36, at the property where they lived with their three children.
After 15 years, the couple sold the 400-year-old Palladian mansion to an anonymous buyer for £ 20.7 million in 2020 and auctioned off much of his treasure trove of peculiar curiosities.
The three-day sale in January 2021 – which took place online due to coronavirus restrictions – brought in a staggering £ 4.1 million after bidders from 40 countries scrambled to pick up rare items.
One lot alone – a giant skull of a triceratops dinosaur – brought in £ 306,250.
Mr Perkins’ spokesman declined to comment on the collapse of his business.
Mr Keyes, who was appointed as liquidator in March 2021, said: ‘If you look at why that level of debt was there in the first place, you will know Aynhoe Park was a very large rural estate that was very high profile, high – weddings there cost and took bookings up to two years in advance.
Now it appears the Perkins (pictured) have put their party firm Perkins Estates Limited in voluntary liquidation which has left a string of creditors out of pocket
‘It was therefore realized at the beginning of Covid that these marriages would continue, albeit with a limited period of downtime due to restraint.
‘But as the situation got worse and worse, most of the people canceled and you had a situation where loans were taken out to let the company get over until those weddings started again – but that just never happened, hence the level of government debt.
‘It’s something like insolvency practitioners that we see all the time.
‘I have a whole host of failed corporate hospitality businesses, from caterers to wedding planners, to wedding dress makers. A lot of people in that particular sector have suffered terribly. ‘
After selling, the couple moved to Dorset to embark on their latest ambitious project – the refurbishment of one of England’s oldest and largest country houses.
Mr Perkins snatched £ 15m from Parnham House for a £ 2.5m bargain.
The Grade I-listed Elizabethan country house near Beaminster had been destroyed in a suspicious fire four years earlier.
Its previous owner, Austrian-born financier Michael Treichl, was arrested in April 2017 for arson.
Treichl was found dead in Geneva two months later in a suspected suicide.
Insurers estimated that rebuilding the devastated interior would cost £ 38 million – and that was before further water damage was found to the property and two more ceilings collapsed.
In January 2021, Mr Perkins told the Daily Mail about his plans for the massive restoration project.
He told how he decided to buy the property after examining it for only 15 minutes the previous year.
He said: ‘There was not much to see! The chapter was too dangerous to enter. It really has nothing – it’s just a frame. ‘
He added: ‘And I also never bothered with budgets. It only costs what it costs! ‘
When he discussed the project again last September, he said: ‘We are re-costing it at the moment. The scaffolding account, I think, was £ 1.2 million. ‘
Asked if he’s ever worried about running out of money, he said, “Um, no, don’t worry.”
The library at Perkins’ stately home contained, among other things, a cheetah, a five-foot Big Ben scale model, including taxidermy.
Mr Perkins spoke after being granted a 24-hour liquor and entertainment license for the venue on his 131-acre estate.
Dorset council has given him permission to hold music and dance performances, plays and indoor sporting events despite nearly 100 objections from locals concerned about noise and disruption.
He plans to create a base for adventurous accommodation and visits and to host parties, weddings and overnight guests to help pay for the restoration costs.
Games, boxing, wrestling and other indoor sports will also be allowed.
Mr. Perkins told of his plans to bring home some magic with secret doors and contraptions inspired by Batman along with a space travel and astrology theme.
While the firm, which was set up in 2007, failed, Mr Perkins controls a number of other companies with reserves of almost £ 2 million.
A new company set up to run Parnham House is £ 858,000 in the black while its Aynhoe Park company is up £ 880,000.
A third company, Aynhoe Park Interiors Limited, has reserves of £ 290,000 and employs 10 people, according to its most recently filed accounts.
Separate documents show that the company also demanded leave of between £ 1 and £ 10,000 for seven months between December 2020 and June last year.