Fleming Capital owed banks more than €85m

FLEMING CAPITAL, the investment firm whose stakes in Arnotts and property dealer RQB were wiped out in the crash, owed its banks more than €85 million at the end of last year, the latest figures show.

Accounts for the business show that the value of its investments at the end of 2010 was €9.5 million.

They were worth more than €80 million when the company was founded in 2007.

Fleming was known as Boundary Capital, and held stakes in Dublin department store Arnotts and RQB, along with other investments.

The company was delisted from the Irish Stock Exchange last year and renamed Fleming Capital.

State-owned Anglo Irish Bank took over its 28 per cent stake in Arnotts.

Boundary paid €40 million for the holding. It was forced to write off this investment completely in 2010 ahead of its delisting from the stock market.

At the same time, plunging property values forced RQB into liquidation.

Figures for 2010 show Fleming owed €85.2 million to its banks, including the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation – formerly Anglo Irish Bank. Of this, more than €75 million was repayable on demand.

The directors’ report, signed by chairman Paddy Murphy and executive Declan Cassidy, points out that as a result of the fall in the value and profitability of its investments, virtually all its debts were repayable on demand by the end of 2010.

According to the directors’ best estimates, at the end of the year there was a shortfall of €31 million between what the company could realise from cashing in its remaining investments and what was due to the bank at that time.

Financier Niall McFadden founded Boundary Capital in 2007. In September 2009 he ceased to be a director of the company, although he kept a stake in the business.

He joined forces with Arnotts and came up with a plan to redevelop the main retail area on the northside of Dublin’s city centre.

The department store bought up a number of properties in the area around Moore Street and Henry Street as part of the plan.