ACCORDING TO accounts filed at the Companies Registration Office, the holding company for Buswells Hotel is one of the property subsidiaries of Quinn Insurance Limited, the company which went into provisional administration earlier this week.
The most recent accounts available for Quinn Insurance Limited show that the company has a 100 per cent shareholding in Quinn Hotels Limited, which is listed as the owner of Buswells. Seán Quinn’s other best-known hotel, the Slieve Russell, is run by a separate company, which is not a subsidiary company of Quinn Insurance.
The notes to the company’s accounts for the year ended December 31st, 2008 show that the company had a 100 per cent shareholding in four property companies which were trading, three of which were incorporated in Ireland – Quinn Financial Services Properties Ltd, Quinn Direct Property Dublin Limited and Quinn Property Holdings Limited – and a UK-based property company, Quinn Direct UK Properties Limited. Concerns over guarantees given by Quinn Insurance property subsidiaries over the debts of the ultimate parent company, Quinn Group, prompted the regulator to move against the group.
In addition the company’s subsidiary, Quinn Property Holdings Ltd, is the 100 per cent owner of 19 further entities. These are mostly hotel management and property development companies based in Ireland, the UK, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Bulgaria. Quinn Hotels – the holding company for Buswells – is one of the 19.
Buswells Hotel is one of the oldest hotels in Dublin. The Georgian building, located across from Leinster House on Molesworth Street, has long been a popular haunt of politicians and journalists. Among the other hotels owned by the Quinn Group are the Hilton hotels in Prague and Sofia, the Crowne Plaza in Cambridge, England and the Belfry hotel and golf club near Birmingham, England.
Last month it was reported that The Belfry, which is owned by Seán Quinn jnr, was considering a bid to host the 2022 Ryder Cup.
Quinn Insurance had more than half a billion euro invested in subsidiary companies during the year.
At January 1st, 2008, the company had a total of €690.4 million invested in subsidiary undertakings, which had reduced to €661 million by the end of the year due to a combination of additions and changes in net asset value. Two-thirds of this investment was in the form of loans to subsidiaries, with the remainder held through shares.
Suzanne Lynch
