Profile: The Doyle sisters - leading the consortium to buy out the hotel business their father founded PV Doyle's daughters seem poised to take control of the hotel empire, fending off drooling property developers, writes Siobhán Creaton
This week the three daughters of legendary hotelier, the late PV Doyle, are claiming to be in pole position to take control of Ireland's best-known hotel group, Jurys Doyle. Bernadette Gallagher, Anne Roche and Eileen Monahan, together with their husbands and children, are leading a consortium that has offered to buy for €1.25 billion the company their father helped found. They are hoping to shortly have the family silver firmly under their control to the disappointment of the wealthy property tycoons who are drooling over the company's prized assets.
For seven months now, the three women, supported by their husbands, have been using their great wealth and the dynasty's considerable business acumen to fend off a series of unwelcome overtures from swaggering property developers rich with cash.
It's not that Sean Dunne and Liam Carroll, the developers who still remain on the battlefield, have a hankering to become hoteliers. They simply want to get their hands on the prime Jurys Doyle hotel sites and turn them into swish apartments and penthouses to make them even richer.
But the Doyle family is having none of it. Those who know them say their resolve is strengthened by their desire to preserve their beloved father's legacy. Fundamentally, though, they are just protecting their business interests. One family acquaintance suggests: "They want the money themselves. They know the hotel business and the money that can be made from it."
Their father began to create an empire in the 1960s, amassing a fortune from construction and hotels. The Berkeley Court, its headquarters and flagship of the empire, became the jewel in the Doyle hotel crown and the headquarters for the family business.
Four decades on, his family of two sons and three daughters rank among Ireland's wealthiest clans. Sons Michael and David have left the family firm. Michael cashed in his shares and turned to construction. David's exit was more traumatic, the result of a bitter row with his sisters.
David, who had stepped into his father's shoes, had an expansive and expensive vision to extend the hotel chain into the US and to upgrade its flagship Berkeley Court and Burlington hotels. His mother and sisters disagreed with this strategy and there were frequent rows. In 1994, after another bust-up with these formidable women, he checked out. A reconciliation two years later saw him re-installed as chief executive, but his reign was short-lived and his sisters ousted him again. At the end of this bitter spat he walked away for good, selling his shares to his siblings for more than €50 million.
During this rift, one of the sisters, Bernie Gallagher, took charge. A politics graduate, she had worked closely with David at the hotels for many years, overseeing the marketing of the Doyle group before her elevation to the top job.
The mother of three teenagers does not court publicity but often finds herself gracing the business pages, as one of Ireland's most successful and glamorous business people. She is married to John Gallagher, a self-made businessman who is leading the family's resistance to the hungry property developers circling the company. Once he had been one of David Doyle's clostest friends.
He made his first fortune by selling a security company, which he had founded soon after leaving UCD, to the British Williams group for more than €10 million.
His next enterprise, Celtic Utilities, a company involved in waste management, proved even more lucrative. He eventually sold it to National Toll Roads (NTR), the company controlled by his brother-in-law, Tom Roche, for €45 million.
Roche, who is married to Anne, the most low-profile of the Doyle siblings, is a member of another wealthy Irish dynasty. His father, also named Tom, established NTR and the company now known as Cement Roadstone Holdings.
The third sister, Eileen, is a solicitor and is married to Ray Monahan, also a solicitor. They live in Sligo and are prominent property developers in the west of Ireland.
THE THREE SISTERS are said to be extremely close and united and happy to support Bernie as their leader.
"They pull together very well," according to one source who knows the family. "While Bernie represents them, they operate very much as equals. They are very collegiate."
Bernie led the family's €314 million merger with the Jurys Hotel Group in 1999. One person associated with the Doyles at that time says she showed great leadership.
"While she is from a very wealthy family, she is no fool. She is a strong person who had an intimate knowledge of the hotel business," the source adds.
The negotiations with Jurys were sensitive and difficult. While the family's differences had been resolved by this stage, they still felt a strong emotional attachment to their father's legacy.
"They wanted to protect that and not be seen to be selling out," according to a business associate. "They did a deal that made them shareholders in the Jurys Doyle hotel group. It allowed them to remain involved in the business and also to have influence and a say in the boardroom."
Their mother was appointed president for life of the enlarged hotel company and it was she who asked that portraits of her late husband should continue to be hung in the lobbies of the Berkeley Court, the Burlington and the Westbury.
The merger transformed both the Jurys and Doyle hotels, creating a chain with a presence in Ireland, the UK and the US, and has yielded handsome profits for its stakeholders ever since.
The sisters ended up owning 23 per cent of the company and each got a seat at the boardroom table. Bernie and Eileen took theirs, while Anne's husband represents her.
"They are quite active board members and are never behind the door in expressing their views," one person says. "Bernie, in particular, is no shrinking violet."
Last year the company produced a €45 million profit, but its chairman, the experienced financier, Richard Hooper, began to express disappointment with the performance of its two most famous hotels, Jurys and the Berkeley Court, and said the board would have to review its plans for the business.
With the property boom in full swing, the two Ballsbridge hotel sites had become significantly more valuable than the businesses themselves. This was all the myriad fabulously rich property developers needed to hear. Suddenly they saw an opportunity to acquire the sites and since then they have lined up to buy them.
Given the Doyle family's business savvy, some observers have expressed surprise that the fierce onslaught mounted by the builders seemed to catch them unawares. The heady prices notched up for properties in this part of the city have been a familiar feature for many years now and the value of the Ballsbridge properties was an open secret. Had the family organised themselves to mount a takeover bid a year ago, they might have saved themselves a lot of money and grief.
So far they have spurned all offers to sell out but have supported the company's decision to sell the four-acre Jurys hotel site to Sean Dunne for a record €260 million. They have also taken the tough decision to sell the next-door Berkeley Court site, the home of their father's empire, on the basis of pragmatism, as it too is likely to go for hundreds of millions. They will use their share of this windfall, together with monies they could raise by also selling the Jurys Montrose Hotel, to fund their takeover bid.
"They take the decisions that are necessary. They have accepted that the sites are worth more than the hotels now," says one source close to the bid.
IF THEIR BID is successful, the family would probably opt to retain the Burlington and Westbury hotels and would also own the group's highly profitable budget hotel venture, Jurys Inns. One person suggests that while the Doyle family's tradition is steeped in four- and five-star luxury as opposed to the cheaper end of the hotel market, they recognise the value and potential of this chain.
Some people who know the family were surprised that John Gallagher stepped forward as the family's representative at the shareholders' meeting earlier this month to sanction the Jurys hotel sale. The three sisters stayed away.
"He has obviously been an adviser to the family, but this was the first time this became apparent. He has taken a strong leadership role in this bid and is the person who will deal with Dunne and Carroll and other shareholders," says one.
"He is a very good businessman and is very much his own person. He is a busy person and you get the impression that his style is to move things along quickly," says another.
Yesterday the family, together with two other groups of investors, claimed to own 48 per cent of the company and to have secured support from investors holding another 2.1 per cent that would give them the 50.1 per cent stake they need to take control.
The other main shareholders at this stage are the developers who have been stalking the group. Dunne owns 28 per cent, Carroll 9 per cent and would probably be supported by businessman Paschal Taggart who acquired 2 per cent of the company this week, bringing their combined interests to just over 40 per cent, far short of the magic 50.1 per cent figure.
During what appear like the final skirmishes it has emerged that David Doyle has a modest shareholding, but this may not be significant in determining the outcome. And while Gallagher and the family's advisers have been busily hoovering up shares from any willing seller in recent months, sources say David was never approached.
The Doyle File
Who are they? The three daughters of the late hotelier, PV Doyle
Why are they in the news? They are fighting to reclaim the family silver and said this week they would pay €1.25 billion to get it
Most appealing characteristic? They are smart business people
Least appealing characteristic? Their spectacular falling-out with brother David
Most likely to? Wage a fierce war to protect their business
Least likely to? Want to see their empire carved up by property developers