THE HIGH Court has ordered the liquidation of three companies controlled by hotelier Hugh O’Regan after the court was told that they had no prospect of survival.
The companies, which have bank debts totalling €200 million, own the former Kilternan hotel and sports club in south Dublin, the former Hibernian United Services Club on St Stephen’s Green and a building on Parliament Street in Dublin.
The court appointed Kieran Wallace, of KPMG, liquidator to Dashaven, the company behind the Kilternan hotel; Clubko, owner of No 8 St Stephen’s Green; and Thomas Read Holdings, owner of No 4 Parliament Street, once home to Dublin’s oldest shop, Thomas Read’s Cutlers.
A subsidiary of Thomas Read Holdings runs the Morrison hotel, in Dublin city centre, which employs 120 staff. The hotel is not affected by the liquidation of its parent company.
Irish Nationwide is owed €171.5 million on the redevelopment of the Kilternan hotel, which Mr O’Regan bought for €12.7 million.
The building society had agreed to provide a further €10 million in loans to complete the redevelopment of Kilternan by offering a new loan totalling €180.5 million, thus refinancing Dashaven’s existing borrowings.
Mr O’Regan had sought court protection last month for his three companies and the appointment of an examiner, giving him up to 100 days’ breathing space to devise a survival plan to rescue the companies.
The hotelier withdrew his application yesterday seeking further court protection and the appointment of an examiner, and instead sought the winding up of the companies.
He reversed his position after Irish Nationwide withdrew its €180.5 million loan offer. Without this, Mr Wallace, who was appointed interim examiner, had found that the companies had no prospect of survival.
Mr O’Regan, who is better known as the founder of the Thomas Read chain of Dublin pubs, planned to turn the Kilternan hotel site into a resort and campus, renamed as New Spring Field, with a 129-bedroom hotel, restaurants, a theatre, conference facilities, lecture rooms, and television, music and yoga studios.
The project was 90 per cent complete. The court heard that he had unsuccessfully sought funding from Trinity College, Dublin, to complete the project in exchange for the use of Kilternan as an external campus.
Anglo Irish Bank is owed almost €27 million on the investment properties held by Clubko and Thomas Read Holdings – €23.2 million on the St Stephen’s Green property and another €3.7 million on the former Parliament Street shop.
Mr O’Regan owes Anglo Irish more than €80 million through his personal and company borrowings.
A repayment demand by the bank last month prompted Mr O’Regan initially to seek court protection in an emergency application on Sunday, July 26th.
Anglo had appointed a receiver, Martin Ferris, of Dublin firm Ferris Associates, to Clubko and Thomas Read Holdings two days earlier, on July 24th, but the temporary court protection froze the receivership.
Yesterday evening Irish Nationwide appointed David Hughes, of Ernst Young, receiver over Dashaven and the Kilternan lands.
Both lenders had opposed yesterday’s liquidation application, saying receivership was more appropriate.
The receivers can now attempt to repossess the properties, ahead of any action by the liquidator, and seek their sale on the back of securities provided to the two lenders.
This is likely to lead to a large tranche of land in south Co Dublin coming on to the market at firesale prices as Dashaven owns about 330 acres of land at Kilternan. As one of Irish Nationwide’s largest borrowers with development loans, the Kilternan lands may yet fall under the control of Nama, the State “bad bank”, in the first swathe of toxic loans to be acquired by the agency.
Heavily-discounted sales of properties around Kilternan could affect Nama’s valuation of other loans backed by land in south Dublin that will move to the toxic loans agency.
