Property developer Paddy McKillen lobbied Taoiseach Enda Kenny to intervene in his battle with Nama, the Sunday Independent reports. Quoting documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, the paper says Mr McKillen wrote to the Taoiseach in May last year asking him to examine the issue “as a matter of urgency with a view to directing Nama to desist from seeking to acquire my bank loans”.
He stated that Nama had lost its way and was working to an agenda “that runs counter to the efforts of the new government to get this economy moving again”.
Mr McKillen is also quoted as offering to advise Mr Kenny on the Irish property market and “what I consider to be the prerequisites for recovery”.
The liquidator of collapsed investment adviser Custom House Capital is exploring whether to bring legal proceedings against the group’s former auditors, the Sunday Times reports.
The paper says that Kieran Wallace of KPMG has taken legal advice over whether he can seek redress over the auditors’ failure to pick up the continuing misappropriation of client funds at the group which collapsed last year leaving a €90 million hole in client funds.
KSi Faulkner Orr audited Custom House Capital until 2009, the paper reports, when it was replaced at the request of the Central Bank by MKO Partners.
Toy shop chain Hamleys could be sold to a French firm for around £60 million, it was reported in the Sunday Times.
Groupe Ludendo, which runs toy stores across France as well as in Belgium, Switzerland and Spain, is in talks to buy the group in a deal that could be agreed by the end of the month.
The chain, which has eight outlets in Ireland and Britain, opened its flagship store on Regent Street in London in 1881. The company had sales of £43 million in the year to March 2011. The group is under the supervision of a committee charged with disposing of a number of assets owned by Landsbanki, the nationalised Icelandic bank. It has already auctioned businesses such as Iceland, the frozen food retailer, but the Sunday Times said it has reportedly not invited any more offers for Hamleys since receiving an approach from Ludendo.
