management contracts taken away from it over the last six months.

First, the company was sacked as manager of the Mizzentop apartments, in Warwick, because property owners were unhappy with the service they were receiving.

And then only last month, LPG was dismissed from running the large Emporium Building, on Front Street, which houses such firms as lawyers Hall, Duncan and Trott, and The Oasis Night Club.

LPG's president Mr. Jack Outerbridge said: "I don't know why we lost it.

There were some conflicting stories.

But then he put most of the blame on a former British woman employee, who he said was involved with both management contracts, including having direct responsibility for the Emporium Building.

The worker went back to England earlier this year after a couple of years with the firm, he said.

He added: "This lady came to us with the highest managerial qualifications and had managed four or five hundred units for one of the boroughs of London.

"It was really only after her departure that a lot of these problems came to light and the dissatisfaction became evident and we weren't able to provide a satisfactory replacement. We didn't have the right people in place at the right time.

"We've had a series of unqualified managers. We had people who supposedly had qualifications who presumably weren't doing a good job.

"But we only found this out more or less after the fact and we weren't able to correct it in time.'' Mr. Outerbridge said his firm had not had any more contracts taken away from it.

He indicated that the losses had not had much of a financial impact on LPG because property management was not a particularly lucrative business.

"These two contracts are a loss but there's not very much money in property management,'' he added.

"It's very labour intensive and it was difficult to get funds or people to pay for our services.'' Further problems were "unlikely'' because LPG had now got together a first-class team of property managers, he added.

The contract for the Mizzentop apartments has gone to the Bank of Bermuda, while the Emporium Building is now being managed by Leonard O. Gibbons real estate.

Mr. J.J. Outerbridge -- `We had people who presumably weren't doing a good job.'