Lloyd Webber’s £35m Mortgage Breaks Bank???

Revelations this week that Andrew Lloyd Webber has taken out what is thought to be Britain’s biggest-ever mortgage has fuelled media speculation about his renewed personal commitment to the future of the West End. According to the Sunday Times, Lloyd Webber borrowed £35 million from Barclays against his £10 million London townhouse and Sydmonton, his 5,000-acre estate in Hampshire. Following serious consideration of selling up and semi-retiring (See News, 24 Jan 2005), the loan instead allowed him to buy out his business partners at venture capital firm Bridgepoint to become the sole owner of Really Useful Theatres and its seven West End musical houses (See News, 7 Nov 2005), which he has committed £10 million to refurbishing over the next few years. Coincidentally, this week, Lloyd Webber also decided not to hold his Sydmonton Festival, a private event he normally holds each summer at his country estate, citing a lack of “resources”, according to the Evening Standard. But, monthly mortgage repayments of £150,000 aside, that probably refers more to man-hour than monetary resources. In addition to his theatre ownership responsibilities, Lloyd Webber and his Really Useful company are stretched this year with the demands of producing West End revivals of Evita and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music, which will also see him taking part in a reality TV competition to find a new Maria (See News, 3 April 2006), as well as a new version of The Phantom of the Opera for Las Vegas. The previous reported record for a home mortgage was £15 million, taken out in 2004 for a businessman’s home in Belgravia. In its Rich List last year, the Sunday Times estimated Lloyd Webber’s fortune at £700 million, thanks in large part to royalties on his many hit musicals including Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoast.

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