The son of a seamstress and a cinema worker, Nottingham-born Bovey saw his chance during the buy-to-let boom.
His sales pitch was straightforward: he would buy new homes from developers, then sell them to investors, who would let him rent out their property for the first two years for a guaranteed income at 15% of the purchase price. Even the furnishings were taken care of, although there was a catch: clients had to buy the company furniture pack, with the sofas ‘designed by Anthea’. Now, Bovey’s swanky offices in Dubai, Singapore and London lie empty. His property empire crashed late last year, leaving debts totalling &pound28m. His 140 employees are hunting for new jobs. Bovey had come into a market when many could see the bubble was about to burst. In September 2007, the was postponed and HBOS gave the group a &pound37.5m equity and debt injection. ‘Sure, things aren’t easy, but in 12 months’ time the market will have forgotten about this,’ predicted Bovey. But last July he was forced into talks with HBOS, his biggest lender, after Imagine had made losses of &pound6.4m and &pound2.8m in the previous two financial years. ‘He threw himself into the whole image of being a property entrepreneur,’ said Giles Barrie, editor of trade magazine Property Week. ‘He would turn up at events in a helicopter and really enjoy the big property shows on the French Riviera. He over-reached himself and, embarrassingly for him, the whole lot came crashing down.’ Yet, to the fury of those to whom Bovey still owes money, he has simply started up another property company, leaving them permanently out of pocket from his last one.
The Distressed Property Company aims to market new homes that developers are desperate to off-load. Bovey hopes to buck the economic trend, buying at the low end of the market and then selling when prices rise.