THE GROUP behind the five-star Claridge’s, Connaught and Berkeley hotels in London is trying to delay the transfer of its Irish bank loans to the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) as it seeks to complete a refinancing of the loans with foreign lenders.
The Maybourne Hotel Group is in advanced talks to repay fully loans of £630 million (€740 million) owing to the nationalised Anglo Irish Bank and Bank of Ireland with new loans from a group of banks led by Deutsche Bank.
Coroin, the firm which trades as the group, is resisting the sale to Nama of the Irish bank loans, which are earmarked to move in the second wave of transfers which starts later this month.
The hotels are owned by Irish property investors Paddy McKillen and Derek Quinlan, Manchester-based businessman Peter Green and his family, and Dublin stockbroker Kyran McLaughlin.
The group is thought to be concerned about the effect on the business of the transfer of performing loans to the State’s “bad bank”.
Maybourne’s Irish bank loans are among €13 billion in loans owing by the next 20 biggest borrowers after the 10 top borrowers to be transferred to Nama.
Mr Quinlan was among the top 10 borrowers who saw their loans sold to Nama by the five participating lenders in April and May.
A spokeswoman for the Maybourne group said it was in the final stages of the refinancing and that the full repayment of the Irish bank loans was “imminent”.
The group has been in discussions with banks from outside Ireland and the refinancing deal was oversubscribed, she said.
Nama has been kept fully briefed on the refinancing deal and the transfer of the Irish bank loans to the agency would upset the refinancing plan, she added.
Solicitors were instructed several weeks ago on the refinancing of the loans and due diligence on the deal was under way, she said.
“Our current loans are with Irish banks. They are fully performing and no covenant has ever been breached. The Irish banks will be repaid in full once the refinancing is complete and we expect this to be significantly ahead of the December deadline,” she said.
The existing bank loans equate to 65-70 per cent of the value of the group, according to its own estimates, putting a value of up to €1.1 billion on the overall business.
The Irish-led consortium of investors bought the group in 2004 in a €1.1 billion deal which included the famous Savoy hotel. The investors sold the Savoy eight months later to Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, an underbidder in the original deal.
Proceeds from the sale of the Savoy – estimated at about £230 million – were used to repay some bank debt in the initial purchase. The performance of the group, which has 530 bedrooms, was ahead of target, the spokeswoman said.
