‘I’m doing my best to pay everyone back…’
Friday 30th July 2010, 2:30PM BST.
FUGITIVE restaurateur Howard Holland has promised to pay back his debts.
Howard Holland has started a new life on the Costa del Sol but claims he is now simply working at an establishment in celebrity hotspot Puerto Banus, pictured, and does not have an ownership interest. His old business associates in Guernsey are chasing him for close to a quarter of a million pounds.
He called the Guernsey Press from the Costa del Sol to give his side of the story regarding the hundreds of thousands of pounds he owes on-island.
It follows Bailiff Sir Geoffrey Rowland’s court instruction to place advertisements in Marbella newspapers to track down Mr Holland.
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Issue an arrest warrant then he can prove what hes got.
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It shouldn’t be too difficult to find him, he passed me in the High Street this morning at 8am, walking with his wife.
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Apparently somewhere in Marbella. Someone I know was having a good laugh on Facebook with his wife about “being on the run”!
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If the gentleman in question can afford to live and work in Puerto Banus, on whatever basis, then he is not wanting for a penny.
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It may be difficult to get the money. A while back didn’t he start transferring businesses to the names of members of his family… although I should imagine on paper only?
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So glad someone else has seen him locally i saw him walk in The Captains Hotel with my old mate Plaza John,thought it strange before anyone was sure it was him they left in a hurry getting in a silver MPV KIA Taxi heading in the direction of St Peter Port
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He was fishing down light house yesterday
Caught a load of mackerel
Said there for his new sushi
Bar.
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Beats me how such a talented restaurant manager got in this mess. I am sure there are 2 sides to the story. It is wrong for the public to jump to conclusions, specially as we have all benefited and enjoyed his establishments,let alone all the employment he has offered the island over the years I know only to well how difficult it is to run business’s in Guernsey, what with all the beurocacy and red tape. Enjoy Puerto Banus Howard,
hope you love as much as I did!
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I think it is just the sheer smugness of this chap that I cannot stand. Mr or Mrs Ordinary would be hunted down and made to pay up. The fact that he and his lovely wife and no doubt all the little Hollands on Guernsey can swan around thinking they are “untouchable” makes me sick. I hope he will make good and pay off all his debts. No doubt next year he will be back in Guernsey opening up another emporium as if nothing had happened!
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Both Geoff and Sarnia expat make very valid comments. Howard was very successful with his businesses but I suspect he got too greedy and stretched himself too far. I always found he would start something up and whilst he was there running it, it would be very good but then he’d start something else up and move on to run that place, putting a manager in the first one and that would go downhill without him overseeing it so closely. He seemed to follow a pattern of this. I loved Partners all those years ago! Not entirely sure how much employment he gave to Guernsey people though, one of the problems I found with his restaurants once he had moved on is that there were staff there who didn’t speak good English and when you’re working in a service industry, you need to be able to converse with your customers.
But like Sarnia expat has said, it’s the smugness of the guy! Just look at that incident with him crashing his car at the old brewery one night – he got away with that one!
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People should not be too quick to judge….
Howard Holland may have made some bad business decisions but he has harmed no one . I wonder if all those so called holier than thou,ers can say the same…I think not!!!
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Im not a HH fan, but those who got into a possition where he owed them a considerable sum need look at both themselves and their motives!
I suggest their motives were financial gain and thus incured risk. If he has robbed them then thats a different matter but other than that what are they going public with their bad business decissions for?
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VQ.
Re Howard’s re-arrangement of the Guernsey Brewery facade. why do you say ” he got away with that one”. He was summonsed, pleaded guilty, received a big fine and lengthy driving suspension.Not my idea of getting away with it.
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extraordinary that some posters are trying to defend this bloke. the world and his mate knew he was failing to pay tax and insurance and bills and wages in his northern ireland operations ages ago and our local authorities totally failed to act against his directorship capability quickly enough. i do wonder why. he has, by his failures, ripped off guernsey tax payers and social insurance payers, as well as business colleagues and almost certainly those who worked for him in good faith are still owed wages. if he was half decent he would be here in guernsey facing the music. he has also probably stuffed peter ferbrache’s chances of becoming future island chief minister ( if he ever wanted it). mr holland and the words greedy and cheat are ony some that come to my mind as i mull this over..
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HH was a very good restauranteur, a good ideas man, but over-stretched himself and it all came tumbling down in the credit crunch as lenders applied the squeeze.
From what I’ve heard, all kinds if personal luxury spending was paid out of the businesses as business expenses, and wasn’t spotted by his fellow investors until it was far too late. If true, it doesn’t reflect well at all on his fellow investors for failing to spot what was happening, but if true it would appear to be prima facie fraud or even theft (misappropriation of company money) and so could easily result in criminal charges if able to be proved.
June May Forde – you say he has harmed no-one. Not true. He’s harmed various parties who are owed money by him, including his fellow investors who he appears to have misled, and who are left with the bank debts which they personally guaranteed. There are of course risks in any business venture, but if one party is paying for luxury expenditure using company money without the knowledge or approval of the other shareholders then that’s another ball game altogether. The other investors may well have got the restaurants as a result of HH’s actions, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to cash. Villa Italia isn’t even open yet.
This one is likely to run and run.
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I remember howard from my old days on the rock, I thought of him as an astute businessman with plenty of drive and enthusiasm ! He worked extremely hard to build up his empire and you got to hand it to him he new what islanders wanted and he did a bloody good job of it too.
This is unfortunate that it has come to this and i am sure he didn’t plan it that way .
He unfortunately got to big along with his business partners.
Hope he does manage to make enough money in spain to pay off his debts eventually .
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Howard was a very greedy dodgy man and I am surprised that peter in his line of work did not see this man for what he realy was!
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Businesses and companies fail up and down the country and across the world every day ! But this is Guernsey at it’s finest , let’s get the press to print everything and publicly hang someone out to dry . I agree with the earlier points in respect of partners and co-investors and perhaps if they want their day in court be prepared for their actions and personal revelations to be on the front page of the Press !
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He owes me money! I sold him some of my cheap fuel and never returned!
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Mr Ferbrache
You swim with sharks you get bitten
You went in with Holland to make a buck you lost get over it
How anyone could suggest Mr ferbrache as possible Chief Minister when he gets into bed with someone as dodgy as Holland is laughable
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I was once subject to a tirade of abuse from HH because i had dared complain about poor service at Christies.
I had used some of his establishments for very expensive corporate events including taking over the Boathouse for evenings etc.
Following the abuse never dealt with the man again.
However he was a big employer on the island andwhen his restaurants were good they were very good but once he lost interest they quickly went from good to bad. Witness the Boathouse which i understand he no longer owns.
I wish him every success for the future but he should settle his debts and I hope he does so.
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He’s been evading his responsibilities since the 80′s.
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Hmm interesting opinions here.
HH is certainly no angel but as a previous poster says, you swim with sharks you get bitten. Frankly I feel more sorry for the other small businesses in Guernsey that have undoubtedly suffered as a result of HH’s bad debts.
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below taken from ozannes website
Peter Ferbrache
Senior Partner. Barrister (England) 1972. Advocate (Guernsey) 1981 Notary Public.
Areas of Practice: Commercial and Civil Litigation. Employment.
Peter practised in England from 1972 before returning to his Channel Island home in 1980. Peter is recognised as Guernsey’s most experienced and hardened litigator, found on one side or the other of the majority of leading Guernsey cases in the last 20 years. He is Senior Partner of the firm and also Head of Ozannes’ Litigation.
Recent Endorsements
must surely be the best advocate in Guernsey
Legal 500 2009 UK / Europe
a ferocious courtroom lawyer with an unbelievable memory and analytical ability.
but dear oh dear little old howard did you out of a million…
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You owe people money, you pay it back. People work for you and help you make money, you pay their wages. If HH is above board why has he disapeared?.
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Egghead.
Do I detect some joy on your part at Peter Ferbrache’s misfortune ? You have taken the trouble to check out Ozannes web site and have discovered that Peter Ferbrache is an excellent lawyer. Had you not considered that he spends the majority of his time as a lawyer. That allows little time to oversee the restaurant businesses that he invested in with Howard Holland. He obviously saw potentially good returns on his investments as we all know there is a big profit in this business. Clearly at some stage he found that things were not right and on checking discovered what must have been huge discrepancies if the sums printed in the Press are correct. As someone earlier pointed out Howard Holland has now moved to Spain leaving a lot of debt, not only to Peter Ferbrache but many others. The idea that he is likely to repay those debts must be treated with some cynicism in my view.
His departure is not the action of a man of good character. He should have stayed to face the music and sort it out as far as he could. Howard has always been noted for his expensive lifestyle and possibly now we know how he did it.
Your euphoria at Peter Ferbrache’s situation says a lot about you Egghead. Lets hope you never make a costly error of judgement.
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Mac
I agree totally with you.
The Press coverage of the civil case whereby Peter Ferbrache was suing Howard Holland (and I think one other) in relation to the Red Onion probably I think gave quite a major clue away about what was going on.
It seems that the investors were revaluing their restaurant premises every so often, stripping out all capital growth, and then ploughing it into new restaurant ventures. Fine in a market when all is rosy – not so fine in a credit crunch.
It appears that all of them guaranteed the mortgages, and then the restaurant cashflow fell back in the credit crunch and so the whole deck of cards came tumbling down. Although all of the partners jointly and severally guaranteed the loans and shared the risk, when it all collapsed only Peter Ferbrache had the personal wealth for the banks to go after, which is why he has had to pay up, and which is why Howard still owes Peter Ferbrache his contribution of the shortfall.
Obviously this caused Peter Ferbrache to look rather more closely at the accounting records of the restaurants to see why cash flow was such a problem. Where were all the profits going from some very busy and successful restaurants ? I think they now know.
I suspect that Peter Ferbrache is highly embarrassed by the ease at which the wool was pulled over his eyes by HH, even if he intended to be a passive investor, but in businesses with enormous cash inflows such as successful restaurants, tight accounting is crucial. It doesn’t seem to have been there in this case.
If all of my above supposition is correct, then Peter Ferbrache (and possibly not just him) has been duped by HH, and has been left carrying the can. Now, if it could be proved that HH was acting fraudulently or worse, then obviously the whole matter could take on a different direction altogether. But how would it help Peter Ferbrache to recoup his money if HH is “out of the way”? Realistically, the only chance of ever recouping the money owed is for HH to keep on working to generate money from what he is actually good at.
So Peter Ferbrache (and his wife) now have the restaurants, and who knows whether or not they will ever help him to recoup what he is owed (hard to see how Villa Italia will as its not even open, yet the lease on the building must be costing a small fortune).
I suspect this one will run and run.
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Let’s not forget that Peter Ferbrache was singing Holland’s praises when he got barred from being a director in the UK for not paying across PAYE and social security that he had deducted from employees (basically stealing). “He’s a successful businessman, his businesses are solvent etc etc.”
I have no doubt that some people would have taken those comments at face value, and continued to extend credit to Holland. If those people have now been left unpaid then Ferbrache has to take some of the responsibility, if not legally then morally.
I find it hard to have much sympathy for someone who earns seven figures a year and charges the ordinary man in the street a weeks wages to see him for one our. He was speculating to accumulate even more wealth, he lost, tough, get over it and stop bleating.
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Just to add a little balance to this thread, Advocate Peter Ferbrache has acted several times to my certain knowledge for people who have not had the funds to employ him direct. In one case I passed to him, he spent many hours of his own time acting for the client in court obtaining a very satisfactory conclusion to the case and refused to take a penny for it. So while he may charge the going rate as a top criminal lawyer, he also does his bit to help those who cannot always help themselves. I say this in the knowledge that Advocate Ferbrache and I occasionally find ourselves on different sides in Housing matters, however to portray him as an uncaring, only in it for the money Advocate is far from the truth and a gross distortion what PF has done over many years to help so many people free of charge.
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Sorry, my mistake, it was obviously Ferbrache’s sense of benevolence that led to him getting involved with Holland. Certainly wasn’t basic greed to acquire even more wealth than his enormous salary and partnership share-out provides. No way, not a chance.
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Phil
I am not going to comment on Advocate Ferbrache’s business dealings, as I suspect like you I have no knowledge of the detail of what they are. In any case it is irrelevant to the overall fact that he is an Advocate that has taken cases at his own expense.
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Old PF’s opinion of the convicted wpc assailant must have changed somewhat now then. Remember the character references Ferbrache gave Holland from a case in 2003?
Now, how come he “ran many successful businesses” as you said in court that day Peter?
For once I agree entirely with TechnoPhil on this one.
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On the beat
Has it occurred to you that what the businesses “seemed” and what they actually were, may be different ? If Peter Ferbrache was relying on the financial records being provided by HH then its not hard to see how he may have been misled. From what I have heard, the only thing that Peter Ferbrache can be blamed for is actually trusting HH.
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Surely the main focus of this matter should not be Peter Ferbrache’s income or wealth that some posters appear to be unhappy with. The bottom line is how Peter Ferbrache came to suffer a huge loss. It seems he invested heavily with Holland almost certainly after examining the state of the finances of the businesses. Exactly how Holland came to be so badly in debt is what matters. Where did all the money go ? I am sure a lot of people have a fairly unanimous view on that question. I also think Peter Ferbrache would have accepted financial problems if it related solely to a downturn in business and taken the losses on the chin (not gracefully perhaps) but I think it is the WAY he has come to lose so much money that clearly rankles with him. His occupation and charges have nothing to do with this and again I say it is sad to see some peoples apparent glee at his misfortune. Dave Jones is correct in what he says. Peter Ferbrache does help people for no charge. I can say that with personal knowledge.He is a fair man and personally I would rather see him in the States that half of this lot.
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