High Court winding-up case looms for Store First

BUSINESS Secretary Greg Clark has launched a High Court action to wind up Store First Limited, the company behind the country’s biggest storage pod investment scheme.

Store First operates self-storage warehouses and has used outside sales firms to market units for up to £30,000 apiece, often as part of investors’ pension savings.

Investors say they were promised guaranteed rental returns and a buy-back scheme, but complaints have mounted from pod owners, who say that marketing pledges have not been kept.

I warned in 2013 that alarm bells were ringing. A promotional video fronted by motoring writer Quentin Willson described Lancashire-based Store First as a ‘remarkable investment’, with 20 centres and plans for 30 more. I revealed the actual number open for business was far smaller and the company’s solicitor admitted that the video’s figure included sites still on the drawing board.

I also warned that Store First boss Toby Whittaker was behind an earlier investment firm, Dylan Harvey Residential, which collapsed leaving investors nursing losses of more than £6million.

A whole string of salesmen for Store First were already in my files over their involvement in land, wine and carbon credit investment scams.

Whittaker condemned The Mail on Sunday’s warnings, claiming: ‘The investigation is shoddy and when analysed shows nothing.’

Alarm bells relied on ‘innuendo and irrelevant comment’, he added.

The case against his company will be heard in the High Court in Manchester on August 1. The Serious Fraud Office is investigating a number of pension schemes that invested in storage pods. It has not named any individual storage firms, but investigators believe there are more than a thousand victims and sums involved total more than £120million.

Investors are asked to contact the SFO through its website at sfo.gov.uk.