SIXTIES POP STAR'S WINE COMPANIES CLOSED

Published: 23 July, 2008

By Jim Budd

Sixties pop star Lynton Guest, the keyboard player on the hit single Everlasting Love by Love Affair, was the director of two wine investment companies closed down in the public interest by the DTI. Guest, 51, of Napier Place, London W14 was the sole director of Ashley White Ltd, which closed in January 2001, and then, with his partner Aurora Menon, a director of Harley Fine Wine (HFW), which closed in August 2001. Menon is now running Frazer & D'Ivoire, another wine investment operation. The Official Receiver estimates that Ashley White's debt is 111,000 and that it bought wine worth only 11,734 - four cases of 1996 Margaux, three cases and six magnums of 1996 Lafite. (No sign here of a case of 1995 Troplong Mondot that an investor bought from Ashley White [AW] in August 2000 for 840, available then for 320 from Seckford Wines.) In the case of HFW, no wine has ever been traced, although the company had 23,000 in the bank when it was closed, with estimated debts of 5,000. Guest joined Love Affair in the summer of 1967. Everlasting Love was released that December and reached number one in January 1968. After he left Love Affair, Guest formed English Rose and, in 1970, appeared in the film Groupie Girl. Subsequently Guest was a football writer for The Sunday Telegraph and is the co-author of three books on football, including For Love or Money. Guest told Harpers: I was a director of Ashley White and HFW, although I took no part in those companies' day-to-day operations; thus my knowledge is based on a review of all paperwork and interviews. The only reason Ashley White Ltd ceased to buy wine was because of precipitous and uncalled-for action by the Department of Trade and Industry. AW had no creditors. I have made a full rebuttal of all the DTI had to say. HFW was again subject to precipitous action by the DTI,' Guest added, the details of which were never supplied to me, except that it was based not on any information specific to HFW, but because its directors had been associated with AW. No suggestion has been put to me that HFW did not buy wine and, indeed, it did so. HFW had no creditors at the time of the DTI action.'

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