I would never wish misfortune on anyone. However, after reading a Daily
Mail article that claims golden couple Grant Bovey and Anthea Turner are having to sell their £5 million mansion, I find it hard to feel sorry for them. It appears they lost £100 million in the credit crunch. The couple owned two companies Imagine Homes, a buy-to-let venture and Imagine Furnishings, a furnishings business. Last year Bovey boasted that Imagine Homes was to be floated on the Stock market and would make the couple £1 billion. The company is now in the hands of Bovey's former business partners HBOS who have taken over amidst chaos in the property market. The furnishings side of their investments filed for administration late last year, but that company lost £700,000 in 2006, long before the credit crunch was even thought of. The couples problems came to light last December when Turner revealed the £100 million collapse of her husbands buy-to-let empire. She is reported as saying 'we are in it like lots of other people in this country who have been bitten by economic circumstances'. The vast majority of other people 'bitten by economic circumstances' are hard working families, with an average mortgage, who have either lost their homes or are struggling with mortgage arrears. People who cannot earn in a lifetime the kind of sums Bovey and Turner are banding about. Is it possible that money that could have been used to secure their home has been speculated in the pursuit of vast riches?
