Businessman who ran company with his glamorous WAG daughter and lost her partner Scott McTominay 'almost £1m' when it collapsed fights to save his £4m home
The father of Scott McTominay 's partner is fighting to save his £4m home from being seized after his business collapsed.
Businessman Ashley Reading, 55, ran investment firm Fortress Capital Partners alongside his glamorous WAG daughter Cam Reading, 25, promoting annual returns of up to 18 per cent before collapsing into administration in 2023.
The former Manchester United star, who now plays for Napoli, was one of the investors reported to be set to lose large sums due to the collapse of his girlfriend's father's business.
The 28-year-old is understood to have ploughed £1million cash, plus £1.32million from his own company, into Fortress, with Boyzone singer Shane Lynch, 48, also said to have made a £730,000 investment in the firm.
In March 2024, the company owed its 230 creditors a total of nearly £18million.
The company borrowed money from its investors before lending it out at a higher rate to corporate entities and one 'high net worth individual'.
Around the same time, another company run by Mr Reading, Rose Cottage Farm Ltd, also got into trouble, failing to make payments on a £4m mansion in Kent which the entrepreneur had moved his family into.
Furzefield, in Holwood Park Avenue, Orpington, is a large six-bedroomed house, set in about one acre of grounds on a gated estate, bought through the company in 2022 for around £2.5m and later marketed for £3.95m.
Mr Reading is now being sued by a mortgage company in a bid to seize the mansion and turf the entrepreneur and his family out.
McTominay's girlfriend Ms Reading has worked extensively alongside her father, previously being Fortress' head of investor relations and described as an 'integral part of the Fortress Capital team'.
The model - who is now enjoying a lavish lifestyle in Naples, with the couple reported to have moved into a house by Lago Patria, a coastal lake close to the beach - also worked with her father as a financial adviser at Bounce, a company previously run by him.
But Mr Reading is now locked in a fight to hang onto his own £4m home after administrators made a High Court bid to seize the property from the company through which he bought it.
London's Court of Appeal heard that Rose Cottage Farm Ltd was a special purpose vehicle set up by Mr Reading to buy Furzefield in 2022 for £2.5m.
Doncaster-based TFG Capital No.2 Limited lent a total of £2.85 million to the company in August 2022, secured by a mortgage over the house and any other company assets.
The loan documents contained a covenant by the company not to permit occupation of the house or land as a dwelling by any person related to the company.
'However, Mr Reading and various members of his family and other dependents took up residence at the house on the land in early 2023,' said appeal judge Lord Justice Snowden, adding that 'the company defaulted on the loans...in April 2023.'
The judge said that the arrears and interest now owed on the mortgage have taken the debt claimed by the loan company over £4m, and that they are fighting for possession of the property and to force Mr Reading and his family out.
'They have not contended that they have any formal lease or other agreement with the company entitling them to remain there,' the judge added.
In August 2023, the loan company appointed receivers, with 'the power to demand and receive monies payable in respect of the land and to take possession and sell it.'
After the receivers 'took the view that Mr Reading was not co-operating with them in seeking to arrange a sale of the land,' the mortgage company sued in August 2023, 'seeking an order for possession of the land' at Bromley County Court.
But Mr Reading 'indicated an intention to contest the Bromley proceedings on a wide variety of grounds' and 'took a number of steps designed to frustrate (the) claim,' the judge said.
Becoming impatient, the mortgage company then appointed administrators who in March last year at the High Court in Leeds issued an application under the Insolvency Act in the name of the company, seeking an order that they could sell the property and 'that Mr Reading and all current occupiers of the property deliver up vacant possession of the land'.
In a ruling in May last year, Judge Jonathan Klein ordered the company 'must deliver possession of [the Land] to the administrators before the end of 11 July 2024.'
But Mr Reading was granted permission to appeal against that order in July last year, and now has succeeded in having it overturned.
Lord Justice Snowden, sitting with Lady Justice King and Lord Justice Nugee, allowed Mr Reading's appeal, overturning the High Court order as an 'abuse of process' and saying it essentially replicated the possession proceedings already started, but not yet concluded, in the county court.
'For the avoidance of doubt, nothing in this decision in relation to the application is intended to have any effect upon the Bromley proceedings or upon the merits of that claim,' the judge added.
The case in the county court will now go forward at a later date.
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