Mapeley Steps Holdings is being wound up by liquidators, formally ending a long-running saga that was the stuff of broadsheet opprobrium in the early Noughties.

In 2001, HM Revenue and Customs transferred hundreds of properties it owned and the management of them to a private company, with the assets themselves owned by a Bermuda subsidiary.

In total, 591 buildings with 1.3 million square metres of floor space were sold.

The sale-leaseback deal was designed to save the taxpayer money, by lowering the running costs for HMRC, but it also meant that the government would be denied some tax revenue on the properties as a result of their ownership being in Bermuda.

While an inquiry found that the cost savings outweighed the tax revenue loss — and the company noted that rental income would actually be taxed — it was determined that the optics were bad.

The ownership of Mapeley — a hedge fund and a George Soros-linked entity — was often mentioned in press reports at the time.

The company that signed the deal with the British Government was Mapeley Holdings, and Bermudian-registered Mapeley Steps Ltd was the owner of the assets.

In the years that followed, the drama continued. Mapeley was taken public in 2005 and then private again in 2009 as the stock price fell, losing more than 90 per cent of its value from the peak.

The company had piled on debt, and the property market hit a cyclical downturn.

The company’s website, www.mapeley.com, no longer provides information about the company, instead pointing to j2.com, a marketing company.

Earlier this year, a number of Mapeley companies were put into voluntary liquidation in the UK, and FTI Consulting took charge as liquidators.

In an advertisement published yesterday, FTI announced the voluntary winding up of Mapeley Steps Holdings and Mapeley Steps, both Bermuda companies.

Creditors must contact FTI with claims by August 21.