THE key player in Ravad, the Israeli company that agreed to pay €13m for the new Tesco store in Roscrea, Co Tipperary, is property investor Igal Ahouvi.
Word is that Ahouvi had also clinched an €80m deal to acquire four office blocks at AIB Bankcentre in Dublin 4 from the pension funds run by Aviva, which paid € 170m for them – but the deal has since fallen apart.
Ahouvi famously said six years ago that property in England had become too expensive and that only the Irish and oil-rich Arabs could still afford to buy there.
In 2007, his investment group teamed up with Quinlan Private, now Avestus, to purchase 47 Marriott hotels in Britain for £1.1 billion.
Five of the hotels were subsequently sold off but Avestus clients who invested in the deal faced a cash call last year.
Two years ago, Aviva put two of the blocks at the AIB centre up for sale with an asking price of more than €50m but failed to draw significant interest. Ahouvi later emerged as a potential buyer for all of Avivas holdings there. Aviva is still believed to be trying to sell the blocks but it ignored requests for comment yesterday.
