Two leading UK hotels, one judge, and the R22-billion lenders no rule book governs
A United Kingdom high court judge has frozen the sale of two Hilton branded hotels, in London and York, while the courts decide whether one of Britain’s…
The Full Story
A United Kingdom high court judge has frozen the sale of two Hilton branded hotels, in London and York, while the courts decide whether one of Britain’s fastest growing unregulated lenders was entitled to take control of the company behind them.
Administrators were appointed in June 2026 over Project Q Senior Ltd – which holds the 297 room Hampton by Hilton near Waterloo station and the DoubleTree by Hilton in York – after the group borrowed more than £94 million (R2.1 billion) from Cohort Lendco II, a lending vehicle of Park Lane-based Cohort Capital.
The company’s new owner, hotel investor Boutros El Khoury, has applied to the high court to remove the administrators. The court has fast tracked the case: a trial of up to three days from 1 October, in front of a high court judge, with witnesses on both sides to be cross examined, and until judgment the administrators may not agree to sell any asset of the company.
Cohort Capital, founded in 2019, says it has deployed more than £1.7 billion and has partnered with major international investment funds on its largest transactions.
It was founded by chief executive Matt Thame, and its directors include Bal Sohal, the chairman of Birmingham developer SevenCapital and co-owner of Cynergy Bank, who sits on the board of Cohort Capital and on each of its lending vehicles, including the one that lent to the hotels.
Cohort is what the UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), calls an “Annex 1” firm, a label most people will never have met because it comes from a schedule buried in the UK’s money-laundering regulations. What it means in plain terms is this: around 1,200 lenders, brokers and leasing companies must put their names on an FCA register so their money laundering checks can be inspected, and that is the full extent of the regulator’s grip.
They are not authorised or supervised the way a bank is. No rules govern how they treat the businesses they lend to. Their borrowers cannot complain to the Financial Ombudsman. And when a loan goes wrong, the lender’s powers run on the contract alone, which can move from a missed payment to control of an entire business within days, with no regulator watching.
That gap in the rules is now under pressure. The FCA warned in March about risks at Annex 1 lenders, and, as the Financial Times reported this week, the £1.3 billion collapse of Market Financial Solutions has prompted the regulator to demand information about business models and financial crime risks from around 900 more of these firms.
There is no suggestion that Cohort Capital, the administrators or S&W Partners have done anything wrong; the October hearing will decide only whether the conditions for the administrators’ appointment were met.
But the case will put the machinery of unregulated enforcement, how fast it moves and who checks it, in front of a judge in open court, and lenders, borrowers and the regulator will all be reading the judgment.
Approached for comment by The Sou…