ANALYSIS:The Grehans are hoping their London properties will clear the debt owed to the State
NAMA’S BID to appoint an administrator to Ray and Danny Grehan’s London properties will be the first application made by the State’s assets agency to the British courts.
Nama said yesterday it has appointed Paul McCann and Michael McAteer as receivers to Irish properties owned by the Grehan brothers personally and through their development business, the Glenkerrin group, in a bid to recover a €650 million debt owed to the agency.
It also plans to ask the British courts to appoint an administrator to their properties in London. The application will mark the first time that the State agency goes through the British legal system.
In situations where it is unsure of the quality of the security it holds over the assets, Nama can ask the courts to allow it to appoint receivers or administrators in order to guarantee that it gets control of the properties involved.
The Grehans are hoping that the returns from their London properties will ensure that the €650 million debt owed to the State will be cleared.
The property market in the city is far more buoyant than that of Ireland and it remains attractive to investors and financiers.
They own an apartment block in London’s docklands called The Forge, and a site in the same region of the British capital with planning for a residential tower.
The developers also own the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Shoreditch, part of Hackney, which is also in east London. They had been hoping that Nama would finance the completion of an extension to the hotel.
At the other end the city, they own a retail centre in Ealing, which is close to Heathrow.
The picture in the Republic is more complicated. Earlier this month, Fingal County Council told Ray Grehan he has to prove ownership of a site in Howth in north Dublin before it can give permission for the planned development of 280 homes there. State-owned Irish Rail may own part of the site, for which the developer paid €50 million.
His €171.5 million bid for the veterinary college, Shelbourne Road, Dublin, valued the site at €84 million an acre and trumped the price paid by rival player Seán Dunne for the nearby Jury’s Ballsbridge site.
Dublin City Council subsequently refused him permission for a 15-storey tower there. The site has yet to be developed. AIB was the main lender for the purchase.
Glenkerrin owns the Grange apartment development in Stillorgan, which was bought for €85 million. The other main Grehan Irish assets include St Edmund’s housing development in Palmerstown, Dublin, and the Glenroyal Hotel in Maynooth, Co Kildare.
If the amount recovered by Nama’s receivers and administrators falls short of the €650 million due to the agency, the Grehans and their company will still be liable for the balance.
