Company director Adrian Burford accused of stealing £12.5 million from his own company
Adrian Burford was a man who liked the good life. He lived in a £9.3 million mansion in the Cotswolds, spent £1.1 million buying shares in the Sushinho restaurant on London’s Kings Road and £26,000 on wines. It now transpires that all of this was paid for with someone else’s money.
Burford, who worked as chief executive of an equity investment company named Fern Advisors from an office in Mayfair, stole more than £12.5 million from the company and now a judge at the High Court has frozen his assets and granted an injunction against him.
London, SW3 5UH
The most notable purchase Burford made was an 18,903 square foot Grade II listed Georgian mansion named Broadwell Manor at Broadwell in Gloucestershire. Last marketed at a price of £8 million in 2012, Mr Burford is said to have spent £9.3 million buying it.
The court was also told that since Fern Advisors launched proceedings against him, Burford has been nothing other than evasive. As of date, the only assets he has transferred have been two hire purchase leased cars, an Aston Martin Rapide and a Land Rover Discovery 4. The house, no doubt, will be next.
Adrian Burford, who once stated: “I make no apology for being quite expensive to run”, is a prime example of all that is ill with the new rich and their greedy ways. He deserves to be made an example of.
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Not only did they trash the lives of investors, but they trashed the interior of the Cotswold house.
Why do such oafish people want such beautiful houses and then tear the guts out of them.
Candy and Candy do exactly the samer thing with the period London houses they ‘develop’.
I never see this in Paris where somehow the period interiors are just gentlly enhanced
Pete – surly if the house is unlisted they can do with it as they wish. Candy & Candy cater for a market and do very well from it. It might not be to your taste but at least they are renovating these houses; many of which would remain unoccupied and rotting without cash being invested. I agree that any work should be considerate, but you need to be careful making sweeping statements – many of the Candy & Candy developments, I personally things are fantastic, such as Hyde Park One.
One Hyde Park is the most vulgar of protuberances ….not just in the context of the Park, but equally deleteriously, to Sloane Street. God knows what it will look like in years to come…worse than the Barracks-I ahve no doubt.
And to correct you: the majority of Belgravia houses the Candys have radicalised ARE listed or ARE in Conservation Areas. However, the classical interiors remain unprotected from their parvenu and vulgar taste.
Still, I suppose they know their market and to pervert the old saying, “you will never go bust under-estimating the sheer bad taste of new rich Russians and their former colonial neighbours”
And to end…I have absolutely no need to be careful in making well judged and sweeping statements!
How did he steal such amounts undetected for so long?? So much for FSA and other regulations.. London seems to becoming crooks haven .
People like Burford get away with it normally because they don’t fall prey to checks and balances. Thank goodness that this time someone checked into what this man was upto. As for the house….. My God….. Burford and whoever he employed has ruined it. They should be punished for being tasteless.
These kind of people lack moral compass. They care not for whom they cause trouble. Does he have a family? They must be very upset with him right now.
Burford needs stringing up. What a disgraceful man.