Investors have accused Colliers of overvaluing a Runcorn shopping centre, causing them to hold on to the asset and lose money.
The claimants, including the trustee of the Bupa pension scheme, ICG Manager, ICG-Longbow Senior Debt Investments and Apex Group Fiduciary Services, allege Colliers “negligently overvalued” the property on which they had made a secured loan, with the case first launched at the end of 2024.
The High Court this week ruled to allow the lenders to amend their claim to include the allegation that Colliers’ valuer Paul Hale increased the valuation following discussions with Capreon, the borrowers’ agent.
They argue a correct valuation would have alerted them that the loan was more than 75% of the value of the property and in breach of the minimum loan-to-value ratio in the facility agreement – which would have led them to take immediate steps sell the property.
The claimants allege Hale initially prepared a draft valuation on £22.41m (which represented a loan-to-value of 79.2%) on 21 January 2018 before revising the figure to £23.75m nine days later (a loan-to-value of 74.74%).
They further claim that the valuer failed to send the increased valuation to the relevant risk management team.
Lawyers representing Colliers told the judge they believed the figure was changed before the conversation but added they “could not be sure of the order of events, not having found relevant metadata”.
Colliers was carrying out the revaluation on the instructions of the lenders who now argue the property’s true value was £16.9m. The claimants said they would have sold the centre in 2018 or by the end of 2019 had they known. In the event, the shopping centre was not sold until October 2021, with the lenders claiming they were left £6.2m worse off as a result.
A trial has been set for October.
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