One of Scotland’s richest men declared bankrupt

John Kennedy, who founded Edinburgh-based Kenmore Property Group in 1986 was one of Scotland’s wealthiest men but lost it all following the global financial crisis of 2008.

The 65-year-old was on the Rich List as having a fortune of £105m and owned a yacht and a private jet.

With a property portfolio stretching from the UK to Europe to the Middle East, his firm was bankrolled by HBOS which itself was a casualty of the credit crunch and had to be bailed out by UK taxpayers to the tune of £25 billion.

According to reports, the Edinburgh-based bank pumped at least £700m into Kenmore, leaving it exposed to steep losses after the company collapsed in November, 2009 with multimillion-pound debts.

This week it was announced by Scotland’s insolvency service, the Accountant in Bankruptcy, that Mr Kennedy had applied for bankruptcy after running up debts of £2,163,899.

The AiB said the application has been approved and bankruptcy trustee Claire Middlebrook, an Edinburgh-based insolvency specialist, has been appointed to take control of the assets belonging to Mr Kennedy.

The son of an Ayrshire farmer, Mr Kennedy, who said in an interview in 2004 that when he walked into a bank seeking financial backing that the door “opens of its own accord”, has declared that he now has only £15,190 available to help pay off his creditors.

It has not been disclosed who he owes the money to as his bankruptcy did not go through the courts.

Mr Kennedy founded Kenmore when he invested almost everything he owned in an old church on the edge of Edinburgh’s New Town.

It was demolished and offices built in its place, which were then let to oil and gas exploration company Cairn Energy.