Four bids have been received for a portfolio of serviced business centres, development land and retail parks with a face value of €287 million that are associated with Meath-based property investor Willie Smyth.
The portfolio called Project Boyne is expected to sell for over €80 million and includes the Fitzwilliam Business Centre group of serviced office facilities in Dublin, Navan, Drogheda and Prague. The Fitzwilliam business centres have dozens of domestic and international clients.
Its centre on Sir John Rogerson Quay in Dublin’s so-called Silicon Docks area was in the press when it emerged that it housed the offices of MindGeek, which is behind some of the world’s biggest pornography websites. Between them MindGeek’s various sites attract 1.7 billion views per month.
Bidders
The Irish Times understands that the four bidders are in the running for the Project Boyne portfolio are Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, Oaktree Capital Management and Davidson Kempner Capital Management. All four have been active in the Irish market in recent years.
Mr Smyth and his associated companies have a portfolio of about 25 assets with debts to Nama. The assets have a rent roll in the tens of millions but investors are also factoring in the development potential of the portfolio.
The Royal Liver Retail Park on the Naas Road in Dublin 12 for example has the potential for significant redevelopment. A 230-acre site in Navan which is included in the portfolio could be developed for hundreds of residential houses.
The portfolio also includes other assets including an office block in Rathmines, 20 apartments in Clonsilla in North Dublin and a period house on land in Navan, Co Meath.
Mr Smyth started his business career as a fit-out specialist for other developers such as Paddy McKillen as they built office and restaurant units.
In 1995 he founded the Fitzwilliam Business Centre business which has 32,000 sq ft of office space in Dublin 2 alone. The low-profile entrepreneur in the later years of the boom moved into property development and it was this exposure that led to his company portfolio ending up in Nama.
End of year close
The sale of Mr Smyth’s portfolio is expected to close by the end of this year along with a number of other major asset or development sales by Nama.
Yesterday Nama invited bids for the Tara Collection of five prime Dublin office blocks including the building that houses Facebook. A guide price of €263.8 million has been put on the prestigious office block portfolio.
Nama is also close to selecting the winner of Project Wave a strategic site in Dublin's docklands alongside the proposed new headquarters for the Central Bank of Ireland.
A short list of four parties has been selected to bid for this site. Names linked to it as potential bidders include Johnny Ronan, backed by a US investment bank, Ballymore Properties which is led by Sean Mulryan, Hines, the $50 billion investment fund, and businessman Denis O'Brien. Mr O'Brien has previously examined locating a marine finance centre in the docklands area.
