Merydion Hotels

Merydion Hotels

A civil legal action has started on behalf of investors who purchased hotel rooms at four Merydion hotels.  The action is being led by a law firm involved in the case against Merydion Corporation Ltd and the hotels involved are:

1. Northop Hall Country House Hotel;

2. The Belgrave Hotel, Chester;

3. Durker Roods Hotel, Meltham;

4. The Star Hotel, Great Yarmouth.

The hotel operations are unaffected by this legal action.  At this time, none of the Merydion hotel companies are involved in the legal action.

In January 2021, Merydion Corporation Ltd [LINK] was closed down following an investigation by the UK’s Insolvency Service.  It was alleged that the company had been involved in money-laundering and tax evasion.  Merydion Corporation Ltd did not own any of the Merydion hotels and an investigation is ongoing to determine how the money paid to that company was used.

Merydion Corporation Ltd, along with the  four current hotel-owning companies and the four separate management companies are all owned by Michael James McMahon.

In the past 12 months Mr McMahon’s companies have used the services of at least three people who have served prison terms for either fraud, money-laundering or other financial crimes.  Since January Mr McMahon has been repeatedly asked by investors to organise online meetings to discuss their investments.  He has not held any meetings and has declined to show his face.

We can show his face.  He is the gentleman on the far right of this image.

In December 2020, Mr McMahon brought in a new director to head up his organisation, Philip Heron-Carne.  Mr Heron-Carne has no hotel management experience and it is unusual that an inexperienced person was brought in to manage four hotels during what must be one of the most difficult periods ever experienced by hotel owners.

An example of the reason why we believe Mr Heron-Carne has been brought in can be seen in the filings of 80/20 Services Ltd [LINK], the McMahon company which was allegedly managing the Northop Hall Country House Hotel until 23rd December 2020.  Mr Heron-Carne was appointed as a director of that company on 15^th February 2021.  Mr McMahon resigned as a director one week later on 22^nd February 2021.  Four days later on 26^th February 2021 Mr Heron-Carne signed off the company’s accounts for the period February 2019 – February 2020.  Surely Mr McMahon could have stayed on as a director for just another four days so that he could sign the accounts relating to the year that he was in charge of the company !  Suspicious ?  We think so.

It’s even more odd when three weeks later Mr McMahon reappoints himself as a director and removes Mr Heron-Carne as a director.  So now we are back to how it was before, except that Michael McMahon had avoided signing off the accounts as being a true and honest record.  Then, two weeks after that Mr McMahon resigns as director for a second time and reappoints Mr Heron-Carne ! Perhaps Mr Heron-Carne felt he had been used and told Mr McMahon it looks a bit fishy.

At this stage, the civil claim is restricted to the law firms which represented investors, but we are continuing to investigate the McMahon companies and a company called Opulent Investments Ltd.  We initially believed Opulent Investments Ltd to be the master sales agent controlling a network of sales agents which were promoting the sale of rooms to investors but, following correspondence with the Opulent Investments Ltd solicitor, we now know that this company’s involvement extended far beyond that of simply being a master sales agent.  Opulent Investments Ltd was also mentioned in the Secretary Of State’s witness statement presented to the Merydion Corporation Ltd court hearing.

What we found somewhat confusing is why Opulent Investments Ltd would choose to involve their solicitor. We had not mentioned their involvement at that point.  Even more confusing is why they would claim that we had been in contact with one of their investors.  We checked with the investor concerned and she had never heard of Opulent Investments Ltd.

We have further information on the Merydion room investments which is reserved for the legal action.  To view a previous article related to this topic click here [LINK].

To view a more recent article on Merydion Hotels click here [LINK].