The Life and Times of a Company Director
Sheikh Abid Gulzar, now aged 78, is no stranger to legal controversy in the conduct of his several hotel and pier companies, all of which he operates as sole director.
In 2013 he was fined £45,000, with a £90,000 costs order, after being held responsible for damaging a conservation site in Pevensey.
In January 2017, as related in our adjacent report, Chatsworth Hotels Ltd and Lion Hotels Ltd were wound up together owing large debts with no assets to pay them.
In February 2018 Gulzar pleaded guilty in Hastings Magistrates Court to breaches of tax regulations relating to Albany Lions Hotel Ltd and Mansion Lions Ltd after appropriating employees’ national insurance contributions and PAYE that should have been paid to HM Revenue and Customs. He and the companies received aggregate fines of £16,000.
Winding-up petitions have subsequently been brought by a succession of creditors of Lions Pier (Eastbourne) Ltd, which was operating Eastbourne pier: in November 2018 by HMRC; in February 2020 by Npower Ltd; in October 2020 and again in March this year by Eastbourne Borough Council.
Another petition was brought in March 2020 by Npower against Golden Amb Ltd.
In each case it seems that the debt has been settled at a late stage to avoid liquidations.
In the meantime, Gulzar’s empire of Eastbourne hotels – Albany Hotel and Mansion Hotel on Grand Parade plus Boship Lions Farm Hotel outside Hailsham – has enjoyed mixed fortunes.
Back in 2019 he put the two sea-front hotels up for sale with asking prices of £4.6m and £2.6m respectively. He was quoted by the news website Sussex World as saying he wanted to concentrate on his two piers. “Buying Hastings Pier represents a massive challenge for me, and now I am determined to make that as successful as Eastbourne Pier,” he said. “That will need my devotion in the coming year, of that there is absolutely no doubt, and further investment.”
Part of the Albany Hotel site (the rear/side street area) was sold in March 2021 to a separate buyer for £570,000 with planning approval for residential development. The rest of the hotel was rebranded Diamond Hotel, and seems to have been leased or franchised out to a new operator under separate management, Diamond Hotel Eastbourne Ltd – though it closed in July without prior notice to pre-booked customers.
Mansion Hotel has been used more recently as foreign student accommodation though, like Diamond Hotel, it was emptied suddenly and remains closed.
Earlier this month HMRC issued a fresh petition to wind up Albany Lions Hotel Ltd.
On the other hand the 45-room Boship Lions Hotel has been block-booked by the Home Office since last autumn for the housing of asylum seekers, two to a room, with reputed gross payments of £60,000 per month. Gulzar has made no secret that he would like to offer up the sea-front hotels on the same basis.
Whatever financial gains or losses there may have been in these operations for Gulzar, they have been hidden, with wholesale breaches of accountancy rules on the part of the three hotel companies. Last filed accounts showed six-figure net liabilities in each case as at March 2018, with no accounts filed by any of them since. Gulzar has applied to have each company voluntarily dissolved, but these dissolutions have been blocked, presumably because of the accountancy defaults.
Notwithstanding his pronouncements in 2019, there has been no appreciable investment in Hastings Pier. Meanwhile, in July 2022, a petition was brought by British Gas Trading, supported by Investec Asset Finance, to wind up Golden Lions (Eastbourne) Ltd, the company which owns the freehold of Eastbourne Pier, on grounds of unpaid debts. That petition has been challenged in the High Court and, on past performance, it seems likely that he will eventually make terms with these petitioning creditors as in previous cases. His merry dance around British company law and its supposed upholders in the insolvency courts shows little sign of flagging.
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Mr Gulzar is not a Sheikh
If he were a sheikh he would not be in financial trouble. He is another who appears to be taking advantage of our laws, right from the start doing his best to defy all rulings and punishments with his illegal enterprises and refusal to pay what he owes. It defies belief that he is still trading at all and moreover that our council is paying him to house illegal immigrants in his boship farm hotel.