AUDITORS HAVE issued a disclaimer in their report on the financial statements of a prime company behind Seán Dunne’s €1.5 billion plan for the Jurys complex in Ballsbridge, citing “significant uncertainties” arising from An Bord Pleanála’s rejection of his development proposals.

The disclaimer by KPMG to the 2007 accounts for JDPHC, formerly known as Jurys Doyle Property Holdings Company, was made on February 24th, weeks after An Bord Pleanála turned down Mr Dunne’s high-rise plan.

Mr Dunne, who said in a recent New York Times interview that he “could be considered insolvent” if the banking crisis continued, has promised to revise his proposal.

Among the concerns cited by KPMG was uncertainty around whether “continued funding for day-to-day operations can be maintained”. Mr Dunne amassed the site at a cost of €379 million in 2005 with the help of loans from Ulster Bank, an institution now owned by the British government following the nationalisation of its parent Royal Bank of Scotland.

JDPHC is a core company in the corporate structure through which Mr Dunne has direct ownership of the site. As a firm with unlimited liability status, JDPHC has no obligation to publicly lodge its financial statements with the Companies Registration Office. However, the audit report on the statements must be publicly filed.

Lodged in recent days, the KPMG report said it was unable to form an opinion as to whether the JDPHC statements gave a “true and fair view” of the state of the company’s affairs in 2007 or were properly prepared in accordance with the Companies Acts.

This was because of the “potential significance” of the combined effect of four matters of uncertainty related to the company and its “principal asset”.

The first uncertainty centred on whether the proposed revised planning application for the development of the principal asset will be approved. The second centred on whether the valuation of the principal asset can be reasonably established in light of current market conditions. The third centred on the continued availability of funding. The fourth centred on whether the company’s directors “will be successful in obtaining the necessary financing to develop the site, should planning approval be obtained and should the company decide to develop the asset”.

A spokesman for Mr Dunne’s main operating company, Mountbrook, made the following comment in relation to KPMG’s assessment of the financial statements: “The report reflects the reality of life in the current market for us as property developers and probably all other property developers, not alone in Ireland but globally.”

Although KPMG said proper books of account were kept and added that it obtained all the information and explanations it considered necessary for the audit, it also pointed that the audit evidence available to it was “limited”. This was because the company’s ability to realise the carrying value of the principal asset was subject to uncertainties. “In view of the significance of these uncertainties, we are unable to form an opinion as to realisability of the carrying value of the company’s principal asset.”