£4.5 million Lotto winner’s property empire goes bust

Lottery winner Barry Chuwen’s £30 million property empire has gone bust.

The 43-year-old former hairdresser set up a firm to manage his portfolio of commercial real estate in 1999, 18 months after he scooped £4.5 million.

But bosses at the Royal Bank of Scotland, who provided mortgages for most of the assets, have pulled the plug after his debts spiralled out of control. It’s not thought Chuwen and wife Jenny will lose their home in the exclusive Whitecraigs area of Glasgow, although his private registration plate, B4RRY, has been sold.

Chuwen said he had been the biggest loser from the collapse of Jasper Wishaw Ltd. He revealed: “Life is a lottery. It goes up, it goes down. You take the blows and get on with it. Jasper Wishaw was put into liquidation after a consensual deal was done with the bank. Nobody was owed money, there was no trail of creditors, the biggest losses were to myself.

“I still live in the same house, I still have a nice car, my kids still have a good education. I’ve had to come back fighting. I don’t lose any sleep over it.”

Ex-crimper Chuwen scooped £4.5 million when his numbers came up in September, 1997. But despite the massive cash windfall he continued to work at his salon next to Glasgow’s Queen Street station for 15 months and admitted struggling to come to terms with his win. He said at the time he “almost resented” winning the lottery because it changed his life.

Jasper Wishaw and its subsidiaries snapped up commercial properties before renting them out. The extensive portfolio included exclusive addresses such as Glasgow’s Italian Centre. In 2005, £1.7 million was spent on the Versace shop, later designer clothes label Replay, but in 2011 it was off-loaded at a £600,000 loss.

The Chuwen’s moved into a mansion in Whitecraigs in 2002 but despite the lottery win took out a £600,000 loan against the property which they bought for £775,000. They also lavished a further £250,000 of improvements on the house. A year later the Chuwen’s married in a £20,000 ceremony at the exclusive Lochgreen Hotel in Troon.

But the couple were left devastated in 2004 when son Ted was stillborn after being diagnosed with Edwards syndrome. Tragedy struck again two years later when they lost a daughter to Turner syndrome. Just 12 weeks into her pregnancy doctors told Jenny her child had no heartbeat.

She later said: “We were so shocked, so unhappy, we just didn’t think it would happen again. It was so cruel.”

Barry added: “You find yourself questioning it sometimes is that the price we pay?”

The loss of Edward inspired the couple to set up the Teddy Bear Foundation to help children with special needs. Through the charity and a series of glitzy high profile fundraising events the Chuwen’s have been able to raise tens of thousands for good causes. They also have a web-based real estate agency called Move Quick which has not been affected by the collapse of Jasper Wishaw.

Chewun said: “I have bounced back and started the Move Quick business which has helped hundreds of people to sell their homes in a difficult market. I have learned a very hard lesson and it has given me the drive to start over again.

“I’m giving full or part time employment to around 15 people and am determined to make Move Quick one of the most successful estate agencies in Scotland.”

He added: “I think running a hairdressing salon in Glasgow wouldn’t have given me the debt facilities the banks did as a lottery winner. We never envisaged what would happen with regards to the credit crunch and how bad the banks would get. There is nobody who hasn’t been caught in this financial crisis and a lot of people are worse off than me.

“If I had not been through what happened with Jasper, then I doubt I would have been able to set up Move Quick. As said, I sat down with the bank and we decided what to do with the business. I’m the biggest loser here. That’s it.”