HEADINGTON HOLDINGS LIMITED

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0074 LMA/4691
Held at	: London Metropolitan Archives   Click here to find out how to view this collection at https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/lma ›
Full title	: HEADINGTON HOLDINGS LIMITED
Date(s)	: 1987-1996
Level of description	: Collection
Extent	: 0.4 linear metres
Name of creator(s)	: Headington Holdings Limited xx Pergamon Holdings Limited | private holding company

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Robert Maxwell built an extensive publishing empire within Britain and abroad. He acquired the British Printing Corporation (BPC) in 1981, changed its name to the British Printing and Communication Corporation (BPCC) in March 1981 and then to the Maxwell Communications Corporation plc (MCC) in October 1987. Headington Holdings Limited, originally called Pergamon Holdings Limited, was established in 1986 as one of Robert Maxwell's private companies and came under the Robert Maxwell Group. Other linked Maxwell group companies included; Bishopsgate Investment Management Limited.

After Maxwell's death in 1991, huge discrepancies in his companies' finances were revealed, including that he had misused £450 million of his Mirror Group's pension fund. It was discovered that shares in a French investment trust, Euris, based in Paris, France had been been removed from the pension funds and pledged as collateral against a £22.5 million loan to Headington Holdings. MCC was placed under the joint administration of United States and English bankruptcy courts acting with the help of Price Waterhouse and its properties were sold to various media companies. The pension funds were replenished in part by investment banks Shearson Lehman and Goldman Sachs, as well as the British government.

Registered office address: 1 More London Place, London, SE1 2AF.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Records of Headington Holdings Ltd relating to the Robert Maxwell case including legal papers, claim correspondence concerning Maxwell Communications Corporation plc and pension scheme booklets. Summary photocopy legal papers prepared by Cooper and Lybrand Deloitte arranged by document number concerning companies in the Maxwell Group including; minutes, memoranda, reports and statements. Newspaper cuttings on Maxwell Pensions and video 'What's the Catch?' (1991) by Firebrand.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

Arranged as follows:
LMA/4691/01: MAXWELL LEGAL PAPERS

Conditions governing access:

These records are available for public inspection, although records containing personal information are subject to access restrictions under the UK Data Protection Act, 1998.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copyright rests with a third party.

Finding aids:

Please see online catalogues at: http://search.lma.gov.uk/opac_lma/index.htm

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Deposited by the Pensions Archive Trust in 2015.

Allied Materials

Related material:

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
Added February 2016.