Sir Tom Hunter's crown as Scotland's richest man lost a little more shine yesterday as his stake in retirement housebuilder McCarthy & Stone was wiped out by its lenders, who took control of the company.

Hunter put up 8% of the equity in a £1.1bn deal to buy McCarthy in late 2006, with house prices peaking, when he joined a consortium with investors David and Simon Reuben and Bank of Scotland which outpaid rivals in a bidding war. The bank held a 20% equity stake, but was also one of the key lenders, while majority shareholders the billionaire Reuben brothers are also understood to own a large chunk of the debt.

"We wrote off the stake months ago," a spokesman for Hunter's West Coast Capital said yesterday. He added: "We never led the McCarthy & Stone deal, it was led by the Reuben brothers and HBOS, we were always a minority 8% shareholder, and we were only on the board for the purchase and then we came off it."

The loss of the high-profile investment, understood to have been valued at some £30m, follows a write-off of similar value in the same sector, with the same banking partner, last month when West Coast's stake in housebuilder Crest Nicolson was wiped out in a similar restructuring.

Hunter has also been forced to write down his significant £300m investment in garden centre chain Wyevale in a refinancing that has diluted his 40% stake.

McCarthy & Stone, chaired by Geoff Ball the executive chairman of housebuilder Cala, is the largest builder of private retirement homes in the UK, and said yesterday that it would continue trading as normal. It said there was "overwhelming" support from creditors for a "large reduction" in the debt burden through implementing a scheme of arrangement, which allows debt restructuring to be enforced with the consent of 75% of the company's creditors and not the traditional 100%.

It has been reported that lenders will write off £200m of the senior debt, and all the lower-ranking debt, in return for control of the company, leaving McCarthy with about £500m of debt.

The senior lending syndicate, made-up of around 60 institutions including HBOS and HSBC, turned down three separate bids for the company on the ground that they required too much debt to be written off and undervalued the company.

The offers came from the Reuben brothers, distressed debt investor ADM Capital, US buy-out fund Oaktree, and the McCarthy family which founded the firm. It has suggested it may return with another offer in the future.

The Herald reported last October that Hunter's housebuilding investments, already hammered by the property slump, were under added threat from the contraction of HBOS, and that debt restructuring at McCarthy was imminent.

Hunter's spokesman at the time said he was "a long-term investor" but admitted to "concern".

West Coast's asset value was reported last month to have declined from £1bn to £750m as its portfolio was squeezed by the property and retail downturns.

Hunter has seen admini-strators appointed to high street fashion chain USC, and been embroiled in a public row over a profit warning at Flying Brands, where his 29.9% stake has crashed in value.

Some 10% to 15% of the West Coast portfolio is thought to be in retail, with the rest in property and international investment.

Investee companies yet to declare any stress are shoe retailer Office and Sir Philip Green's BHS and House of Fraser, where Hunter is thought to be plotting to take his stake from 11% to 35% after the downfall of Icelandic investor Baugur. He also bought back 43 of the 58 USC stores from the group's administrator in a controversial salvage deal.

In property, West Coast's ownership of £340m of shopping centres in joint venture with Catalyst Capital and Bank of Scotland has been reported as resilient, while other assets include 135 properties leased to the expanding hotel chain Travelodge, and 220 pubs acquired from Spirit Group.

The group also owns 8% of PSN, the fast-growing Aberdeen-based oil services company.

Last year, Hunter sold young fashion chain D2 to its management team, loss-making footwear chain Qube to JJB Sports for £1, and his Dobbies Garden Centres stake to Tesco for £35m after an abortive takeover battle that cost him £9m.

Hunter said in early 2008 he was "focused on sizeable retail investments like House of Fraser and Wyevale alongside a heavy focus on property and international investment".

His spokesman said last month: "We have a wide portfolio of assets, some of which are performing well, some not so well. But our strategy is not to liquidate assets, it is to steer through this storm."

The spokesman insisted yesterday that even in the bombed-out housebuilding sector, all was not lost. "Long-term, eventually, it will pick up."

The philanthropic Hunter Foundation has committed to invest £35m in good causes and last year pledged a further £100m for investment in Scotland and the developing world, as Hunter made his celebrated pledge to donate £1bn to good causes in his lifetime. The vow was made in July 2007 at his villa on Cap Ferrat near Nice - which Hunter sold last year for £50m.