Bankrupt Leech quits as chairman of ML Laboratories

Kevin Leech, the millionaire entrepreneur behind a string of biotech, dot.com and leisure companies, has been declared bankrupt, owing £22m to HSBC.

The colourful and controversial entrepreneur, whose property and business fortune was estimated at more than £1bn at its peak in 2000, was yesterday forced from the chairmanship of ML Laboratories, a UK-listed biotech group.

The banks have been closing in on him since the bubble burst and his investments plunged in value. At least two of his other companies have gone under this year and his humiliation was sealed in a Jersey courtroom, where HSBC applied for the island's Royal Court to seize Mr Leech's assets. These are now estimated at just £15m.

His fortune was built on the sale of the family funeral business in 1982, after which he moved to the Channel Islands. In the decade that followed he dominated Jersey nightlife, owning many of its biggest clubs, and was famed for a lavish lifestyle that included the ownership of yachts, private aircraft, a manor house residence and a box at Old Trafford. He was declared en désastre, as personal bankruptcy is known in Jersey, on Wednesday morning.

ML Labs rushed out its statement on a boardroom shake-up in the last few minutes of trading on the Stock Exchange yesterday. The company's shares fell 1.75p to a record low of 10.5p, reducing the value of Mr Leech's 40 per cent stake to £6.5m. The company said Mr Leech's bankruptcy was a "coincidence", and the scale of the boardroom restructuring reflected loss-making ML's need to bring costs under control.

Mr Leech has previously used ML Labs shares as collateral for a loan to another of his companies. Last year he was involved in a legal battle with the widow of the company's founder over an alleged loan, a dispute which was settled by the transfer of 14 million ML shares to the founder's estate.

Mr Leech's investments included TPN Holdings, which called in receivers in January owing HSBC £16m, and Buyersguide, a holding company whose main investment is the London-listed Venturia, now a shell company. While Venturia continues to trade, Buyersguide is in administration.

A friend of Mr Leech said: "He's involved in a myriad of different businesses and the economic climate has mitigated against the success of those. Meanwhile, banks are running around like headless chickens trying to close every door ­ after the horses have bolted."