Leech loses millions in crash

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Updated:

 

A legal challenge over management of a privately-run company is not the only recent setback for one of Britain's richest men, Kevin Leech.

This week he pledged to vigorously oppose courtroom claims, by his former business partner's widow, of mismanagement at Jersey-based Milner Laboratories.

Another blow has been the serious dent to his wealth, estimated at £1.2bn this spring when he was ranked 17th in the rich list, caused by the dotcom crash.

After building a leisure and property empire, Leech rocketed up the elite league through investments in three New York-listed Internet ventures.

His stake in Internet incubator Ci4net was reportedly worth £880m in March at the height of the hi-tech boom. But the shares have since fallen by a third to $31, valuing the entire company at $935m (£600m).

He was said to have £90m in information booth supplier Townpagesnet and online recruitment firm Topjobs.net before they slumped in value.

Down by 80%, Townpagesnet is now worth $10m (£6m) and Topjobs.net $47m (£30m) after a 75% fall.

Meanwhile, his London-listed drug developer ML Laboratories has fallen by nearly a third in four years to 169p, off last year's 54p low, valuing his stake at £134m.

Leech is planning to take private for £23m the quoted caravan-park operator Queens-borough, where he holds 30%. The shares have halved to 19p in three years.

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

Most watched Money videos

{"status":"error","code":"499","payload":"Asset id not found: readcomments comments with assetId=1568907, assetTypeId=1"}