Commercial Property

Ukraine’s brutal new reality puts question mark over sale of former Quinn properties

IBRC liquidators had been planning the sale of Ukrainian and Russian assets

Businessman Seán Quinn. A sale of Ukrainian and Russian properties once owned by Quinn’s family had been planned. File photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times

Sat Feb 26 2022 - 05:26

IBRC liquidators Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson must have been glued to media bulletins this week as the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine unfolded into a brutal reality.

The pair, who were appointed by the State as IBRC’s liquidators in 2013, had been planning the sale of Ukrainian and Russian properties once owned by the family of businessman Seán Quinn.

These assets had been part of a protracted and expensive dispute between the IBRC liquidators and the Quinn family.

The dispute appeared to have been settled three years ago when the execution of a judgment against the Quinns for €440 million was stayed on condition that the family helped secure the return to IBRC of valuable assets in their international property group.

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Russian leader Vladimir Putin's move against Ukraine has placed a large question mark over any move to sell the Ukrainian and Russian properties, given the uncertain future facing Ukraine and the international sanctions that have been put in place against Russia.

A unit of IBRC owns a six-storey office building in Kyiv and the Univermag shopping mall also in the Ukrainian capital, which had been estimated to have a combined value of €70 million-€80 million prior to the invasion. Both properties were locked up as Russian troops advanced towards the city.

The subsidiary, QIPG Refinance Ltd, also owns a 20-storey Moscow office block known as Kutuzoff Tower, and a major logistics centre in Kazan, called Q Park, almost 800km east of the Russian capital. These are estimated to have a combined value of about €100 million.

The Russian assets had been expected to be placed on the market this year. Putin has now thwarted those plans, to the cost of the State and taxpayers.

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