Manchester’s biggest restaurants Royal Nawaab is up for sale because its founders have fallen out

ما نچسٹر، مالکان کے مابین عدالت کی لڑائی کی وجہ سےرائل نواب کو فروخت کرنے کا باعث بن گیا

مانچسٹر، پوٹھوار ڈاٹ کوم، محمد نصیر راجہ۔۔۔۔ مانچسٹر میں موجود مشہور ریسٹورنٹ رائل نواب مالکان میں باہمی اختلافات کے باعث فروخت کرنے کا باعث بن گیا۔ سنہ دو ہزار تیرہ میں کھولا گیا ریسٹورنٹ اور بینکوئٹ ہال خاندانی اختلافات کے باعث اس وقت فروخت کئے جانے کے لئے پیش کیا جارہا ہے کیونکہ دونوں مالکان میں کسی قسم کا معاہدہ نہیں ہو رہا۔ مالکان محبوب حسین اور طارق محمود ملک کے باہمی اختلافات کے باعث معاملہ عدالت تک جا پہنچا محبوب حسین طارق ملک سے اس کا حصہ خریدنا چاہتے تھے مگر طارق نے انکار کر دیا دوسری طرف ظارق ملک کی بھی یہی خواہش تھی۔دونوں خاندانوں کے درمیان بچوں کے حوالے سے ازدواجی تعلقات بھی قائم ہیں۔ مگر مالکان کی بیویاں اور بچے بزنس میں شئیر ہولڈرز ہونے کے باعث معاملات انتہائی پیچیدہ ہو چکے ہیں۔ جب دونوں مالکان کسی نتیجے پر نہیں پہنچ سکے تو عدالت نے ریسٹورنٹ کے مانچسٹر کے رائل نواب کے آدھے حصے کوجس کے مالک طارق ملک ہیں کو اوپن مارکیٹ میں سیل لگانے کی منظوری دے دی اب ریسٹورنٹ کی اوپن مارکیٹ میں بڈنگ ہوگی اور بڈ جیتنے والا رائل نواب مانچسٹر کےآدھے حصے کا مالک بن جائے گا۔

Manchester; Royal Nawaab is to go on sale after a bitter fall-out between the founders.
Royal Nawaab, the buffet restaurant and banqueting hall in Manchester has been at the centre of a protracted court dispute.

The place has been a hotspot for Asian cuisine since it opened in 2003, tapping into the demand for casual dining and venues for large-scale events, like weddings.

A recently published High Court judgement, which largely refers to all the parties by their first names, said that the business has been ‘very profitable’, but the founders, Tariq Mahmood Malik and Mahboob Hussain Junior, had fallen out within a few years of opening up.

Now, after years of bad blood between the founders, Mahboob and Tariq, the judge has ruled that the property and 50 per cent of the company must go on sale in a process bounded by terms set by the court, in order to prevent Tariq engineering a ‘bidding war’ and then dropping out.

At a High Court hearing last month, sitting at Manchester Civil Justice Centre, Judge Stephen Davies described how Tariq and Mahboob had started out as joint owners and shareholders in the business.

But by 2007, as his relationship with Mahboob soured, Tariq stepped back from the business and his son Asad – who is married to Mahboob’s daughter, Atikah – took up the reins. With time, Tariq’s wife, Nusrat Tariq, and Mahboob’s wife, Mirza Begum, also became shareholders in the business.

However, in 2016, Tariq fell out with members of his own family – including his wife Nusrat, with whom he was by then estranged, as well as his son Asad, and another, younger son, Usman, who by then were both shareholders in the business and were supportive of their mother.

On top of this, Tariq’s family remained on good terms with Mahboob, his co-founder, former friend and in-law. As a result of this fall-out, which Judge Stephen Davies said ‘appeared to be irreversible’, Tariq was removed as a director.

The outcome has been a court wrangle over the future of the business, which led to a judge stating that the ‘most sensible way forward’ was to have an expert valuation on the property and the partnership half share of the business so that Tariq’s interest could be sold to some or all of the others.

But in an unexpected twist in January, Tariq said that he didn’t want to sell his share of the partnership assets to Mahboob and instead wanted the Stockport Road property sold on the open market.

The plot thickened further n March, when Tariq offered to buy out Mahboob for £2.2m.

This was rejected by lawyers for Mahboob and the others, who said said it was ‘unacceptable’ for Tariq, or any third party to acquire Mahboob’s share, and that they didn’t think it was a genuine offer ‘since Tariq had no obvious means of funding the purchase’.

With Tariq then pressing for the business to be sold off, and Mahboob still wanting to buy Tariq out, Judge Stephen Davies decided on a compromise.

This is that there should be sale according to the court’s terms, and, that if no sale proceeds, Mahboob should buy out Tariq.

“The court has a discretion not only as to whether or not to order a sale, but also the manner in which any sale should be conducted,” Judge Davies said.

“That is particularly important in this case, since in my judgement there is a very real likelihood that Tariq’s true motive in pressing for an order for sale is to attempt to increase the price by engineering a bidding war, and I am satisfied that it is necessary to ensure that the provisions in relation to any sale should be tailored so far as reasonable to prevent him from doing so with impunity.”

He ordered a ‘full and fair’ valuation of the property and the business so that Tariq, Mahboob and any of the other defendants can make bids ‘as should any third party who wishes to do so’.

However the judge added that ‘independent’ selling agent or solicitor charged with the ‘conduct of the sale’ should be under ‘no obligation to publicise’ it.

In order to ‘prevent injustice’, the judge set terms that mean Mahboob can acquire the property and the shares at the court’s valuation if others drop out after making bids above that price