Fernhill School owed a parent £1.8m. Then its accounts stopped being filed

‘Dreich’ is an apt descriptor for all aspects of the Wednesday school run at Fernhill this week, applicable to everything from the weather to the prospects of the exclusive private school. In the car park, parents shelter from unrelenting drizzle in pricey SUVs, engines idling to keep warm. Soon their children will leave the handsome stone building that houses the school, their lessons finished for the day. But come June, they’ll depart Fernhill for good.  

At the end of January, it was announced the 73-year-old Catholic school in Rutherglen would be closing its doors in summer. It wasn’t the only news concerning Fernhill to drop that week: charity regulator OSCR revealed they’re launching an investigation into potential “misconduct” and whether charity trustees are in breach of their duty to act in interest of the school’s trust. Yearly accounts have been missing in action since 2022, it’s been discovered. 

This is not the first time Fernhill has been on the brink. But this time there’s no generous parent to bail out the school. The fallout will disrupt the learning of roughly 250 pupils, with 40 staff set to lose their jobs. But mystery surrounds this elite institution and the directors responsible for its financial oversight, who include a Glasgow ice cream magnate and the man behind the Tony Macaroni restaurant empire.

The ice cream CEO and the Macaroni king

Currently overseeing Fernhill are a duo who should know a thing or two about running a business. David Equi is the current CEO of family firm Equi’s ice cream, a national success story; Giuseppe “Sep” Marini is the man behind the Tony Macaroni restaurant chain, as well as other hospitality brands including Marini’s fish and chip shops and Nardini’s ice cream. 

For the last decade, Marini and Equi have been the only consistent directors of Fernhill School Ltd, the charity and company responsible for “overall operation of the school”, whereas the headteacher manages the educational side.

Fernhill’s Italian connection began in 2014. In June of that year, the school also found itself teetering on the edge. Financial troubles had nearly pushed the school into administration, despite teachers agreeing to a pay cut to keep it operating. The outlook was not promising; from 2007 to 2013, Fernhill had lost a staggering £1.7 million.

In 2011 a prospective saviour appeared — not Mr Tony Macaroni or the Ice Cream King, but a “parent of a former pupil”. This was Coatbridge businesswoman Kathleen Boswell. She and her husband Tony were two of six new directors who joined the school’s board in January 2011. The Boswells immediately set about arranging to bail it out. In March, Kathleen took security over Fernhill’s grounds in order to provide the school with a mortgage loan. By July 2011 she had personally loaned the school £500,000 in return for a charge over its premises. About half this cash was used to repay the school’s existing lender, Royal Bank of Scotland, but the rest was available to support the school’s operations.  

The school’s mounting losses between 2012 and 2014 meant the Boswells had to increase their level of financial support. They did this by adding a £1 million loan from the family company, Retronix Ltd. By July 2014 the combined loans to the school from Kathleen Boswell personally and Retronix Ltd had reached £1.8 million. At this point the Boswells seem to have thrown in the towel: on 19 June 2014 they both resigned from the board. The next day, Sep Marini became a director.