Prolific film producer Alan Latham, whose low-budget projects have featured stars like Kelsey Grammer and Anna Chancellor, has had 50 of his production businesses forcibly removed from the UK's companies register. This action leaves workers unable to chase unpaid fees, according to data compiled by the film workers' union Bectu.
Compulsory Strike Offs Leave Creditors Without Recourse
A compulsory strike off occurs when Companies House dissolves a company for failing to meet legal obligations, such as ignoring warnings to file annual accounts or confirmation statements. Once a company is removed from the register, there is no longer an entity for creditors to make claims against. Film workers have told the Guardian that they have been unable to collect debts owed by Latham's former businesses, including those that have been struck off.
One of Latham's companies, City Girls Productions, was set up to produce the film City Girls, starring Elizabeth Hurley. Filming began in Yorkshire in 2021 but was abandoned after a cast member contracted Covid-19. A crew member said she was among several early-career workers who were not fully paid. “We were all young, desperate for work and to prove our worth. We were overly excited – that comes with not understanding – and we were exploited,” she said. “It felt like they were using young whippersnappers as their cashflow, without us consenting or having any way of knowing that this was the MO.”
Multiple Productions Affected
A second supplier, who worked on another unfinished Latham film called Rufus Kane, said his business was owed thousands of pounds by the production company RK Film Productions. “We got every excuse under the sun [not to be paid],” he said. “It was really bad and we just about managed to keep our heads above water. We had no choice but to write the debt off. Even just talking about it brings up the old scars.”
City Girls Productions and RK Film Productions were compulsorily struck off by Companies House in 2024 and 2025, respectively. The Guardian has been told of further Latham productions where film workers claim they have not been paid.
Pattern of Late Filings and Dissolutions
In total, 50 companies have been removed from the register by Companies House when Latham was a director, according to Bectu's analysis. The businesses were late filing either annual accounts or confirmation statements on more than 400 occasions, according to additional research by business data firm Tech City Labs. The frequency of interventions to strike off Latham's companies raises questions as to whether he planned for large numbers of his businesses to be dissolved.
Discrete companies – often called special purpose vehicles (SPVs) – are routinely formed to manage a single project and tend to continue trading for years after a film's release to collect royalties, according to industry sources. Latham remains a director of about 50 active companies, according to Companies House data. He is a well-known figure in the UK film industry, credited as a producer on 81 releases dating back to 1996, with two further films in production, according to IMDb.
Previous Questions Over Financing
In November, the Guardian reported on questions over the financing of some of Latham's films, where leaked internal budgets appeared to show significantly lower costs than published figures used to determine the level of tax credits the productions claimed. Latham was approached for comment.
