'Rave king' James Perkins' firm hosting parties for celebs like Madonna at mansion goes bust
A company owned by a 'rave king' millionaire who has hosted lavish parties for royalty and A-list celebrities has gone bust owing nearly £1.4 million in debts, MailOnline can reveal.
Flamboyant entrepreneur James Perkins once entertained stars like Noel Gallagher, Kate Moss, Madonna and Bono at his £20m stately home.
But now it's emerged he has placed his party firm Perkins Estates Limited into voluntary liquidation leaving a string of creditors out of pocket.
Party firm Perkins Estates Limited went into voluntary liquidation leaving a string of creditors out of pocket. Pictured: 'Rave king' millionaire James Perkins with his wife Sophie Taylor
Flamboyant entrepreneur Perkins once entertained stars like Noel Gallagher, Kate Moss, Madonna and Bono at his £20m stately home
Insolvency experts said the party was brought to an abrupt halt by Covid which led to the cancellation of weddings and celebrations while debts mounted up.
A report just published reveals that liquidators do not believe a single penny will be repaid.
Liquidator Rob Keyes said: 'Unquestionably they were a victim of the pandemic.'
The biggest debt is a whopping £780,000 handed over through a government-backed coronavirus loan scheme.
The money is owed to HSBC bank along with a further £150,000 while loan company Lombard is owed £76,598.
Smaller trade creditors stand to lose £115,632. They include a catering firm owed £51,000 while a cleaning company stands to lose £16,543.
Taxpayers will also lose out with HMRC owed £71,920 in unpaid VAT, PAYE and national insurance contributions while a further £5,638 is also owed in corporation tax.
The report said: 'The initial assessment has been compared and the joint liquidators did not identify any further assets or actions which might lead to a recovery for creditors.'
It added: 'It is not anticipated that a distribution will be made to any class of creditor.'
It comes despite Mr Perkins raising £4.1 million from the sale of treasures which he packed into Aynhoe Park, a spectacular 28-bedroom mansion in Northamptonshire.
Mr Perkins also owns separate businesses with assets of more than £2 million.
Mr Perkins, 53, started planning parties as a teenager, and was throwing raves at stately homes for more than 22,000 people by 22.
A stint as a record producer followed, after which he became a property developer.
His most high-profile project came after he bought and restored Aynhoe Park.
He crammed the property with an eccentric array of antiques and artworks and ran the country house as an upmarket wedding and party venue.
Famous revellers including pop star Noel Gallagher, supermodel Kate Moss, Madonna and U2 frontman Bono, danced till dawn there to the likes of Duran Duran surrounded by stuffed zebras and a £125,000 flying giraffe suspended from glass balloons.
The property has also played host to royalty while Mick Jagger's daughter Jade married at the house and Cara Delevingne spent a Christmas there with her family.
Mr Perkins also married his long-term partner Sophie, 36, at the property where they lived with their three children.
After 15 years, the couple sold the 400-year-old Palladian mansion to an anonymous buyer for £20.7 million in 2020 and auctioned much of its treasure trove of quirky curiosities.
The three-day sell off in January 2021 - which took place online because of coronavirus restrictions - brought in a staggering £4.1 million after bidders from 40 countries scrambled to snap up rare items.
One lot alone - a giant skull of a triceratops dinosaur - brought in £306,250.
Mr Perkins' spokesperson declined to comment on the collapse of his business.
Mr Keyes, who was appointed liquidator in March 2021, said: 'If you look at why that level of debt was there in the first place you will know Aynhoe Park was a very big country estate that held lots of high-profile, high-cost weddings there and took bookings up to two years in advance.
Now it's emerged the Perkins (pictured) has placed his party firm Perkins Estates Limited into voluntary liquidation leaving a string of creditors out of pocket
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Share'So it was perceived at the start of covid that these weddings would go ahead, albeit with a limited period of down time because of lockdown.
'But as the situation got worse and worse most of the people cancelled and you had a situation where loans were taken out to tide the company over until those weddings recommenced - but they just never happened hence the level of government debt.
'That is something as insolvency practitioners we are seeing all the time.
'I have got quite a number of failed corporate hospitality businesses from caterers through to wedding planners, to wedding dress makers. Quite a number of people in that particular sector have suffered enormously.'
After selling up, the couple moved to Dorset to take on their latest ambitious project - renovating one of England's oldest and largest country houses.
Mr Perkins snapped up £15 million Parnham House for a bargain £2.5 million.
The Grade I listed Elizabethan country house near Beaminster had been destroyed in a suspicious fire four years earlier.
Its previous owner, Austrian-born financier Michael Treichl, was arrested on suspicion of arson in April 2017.
Treichl was found dead in Geneva two months later in a suspected suicide.
Insurers estimated rebuilding the ravaged interior would cost £38 million - and that was before further water damage to the property was found and two more ceilings fell in.
In January 2021 Mr Perkins told the Daily Mail about his plans for the massive restoration project.
He told how he decided to buy the property after inspecting it for just 15 minutes the previous year.
He said: 'There wasn't much to see! The main bit was too dangerous to go in. It doesn't really have anything - it's just a frame.'
He added: 'And I've never bothered about budgets either. It just costs what it costs!'
Discussing the project again last September he said: 'We're having it re-costed at the moment. The scaffolding bill, I think, was £1.2 million.'
Asked if he ever worried about running out of money he said: 'Um, no, don't worry.'
The library at Perkins' stately home contained a cheetah, a five foot scale model of Big Ben among other taxidermy
Mr Perkins spoke out after he was granted a 24-hour drinks and entertainment licence for the venue on his 131-acre estate.
Dorset council gave him permission to hold musical and dance performances, plays and indoor sports events despite almost 100 objections from locals worried about noise and disruption.
He plans to create a'a base for adventure stays and visits' and host parties, weddings and overnight guests to help to pay for the restoration costs.
Plays, boxing, wrestling and other indoor sports will also be allowed.
Mr Perkins told of his plans to 'bring some magic' to the house with secret doors and contraptions inspired by Batman along with a space travel and astrology theme.
While the firm which was set up in 2007 has gone bust, Mr Perkins controls a number of other companies with reserves totalling almost £2 million.
A new company set up to run Parnham House is £858,000 in the black while his Aynhoe Park company is up by £880,000.
A third company, Aynhoe Park Interiors Limited, has reserves of £290,000 and employs 10 people, according to its most recently filed accounts.
Separate documents show that the business also claimed furlough of between £1 and £10,000 for seven months between December 2020 and June last year.
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