Property developer Mick Bailey has resumed full control of his heavily indebted Bovale empire after a decade-long hiatus in which he was disqualified as company director for seven years.
His return comes amid uncertainty over the fate of company funding from the National Asset Management Agency (Nama), the State agency established in the financial crisis to settle soured property loans in Ireland’s domestic banks. Nama is scheduled to conclude its operations by the end of this year.
The full extent of Bovale’s Nama debts remains unclear but recently filed accounts for Mr Bailey’s UK company, Willsgrove Developments, show Nama loans and accrued interest of £59.23 million (€71.5 million) at the end of 2023. Such loans carried a 2.75 per cent interest rate and the annual interest charge was £1.72 million.
Official filings in Dublin show Mr Bailey quietly became a director and joint-secretary of Bovale Developments Unlimited Company in December, rejoining the board of the business for the first time since his disqualification took effect in 2014.
His return to the board, at the age of 71, opens yet another chapter in his controversial career.
[ Bovale secures €44.6m from sale of Dublin Central Logistics ParkOpens in new window ]
Mr Bailey and his brother Tom faced damning criticism in the findings of the planning tribunal. Tom Bailey was also disqualified as a company director. The brothers made a €22.17 million tax settlement in 2006, the State’s largest.
The multimillionaire brothers set up Bovale in the early 1980s, going on to rank among the biggest landowners in the State. After prolonged tribunal entanglements, Mick Bailey was found in 2002 to have made a corrupt payment to former Fianna Fáil minister Ray Burke and to have obstructed and hindered the inquiry on eight grounds.
Another tribunal report in 2004 found he made three corrupt payments to the former planning official George Redmond, and hindered and obstructed the tribunal on five grounds.
In 2013, the High Court disqualified the brothers from acting as company directors after finding they were guilty of “particularly serious” misconduct and fraud. Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan referred to the brothers’ “systematic falsification” of books of account and a €6 million understatement of their gross remuneration over two years in the 1990s.
Now Mick Bailey is back on the Bovale board. This week the company realised some €44.6 million from the sale of a 91-acre land bank near the M50 in north Co Dublin.
The buyers included the Central Bank of Ireland and Nocsy 5 Ltd, part of the Sandymark group controlled by businessman Con McCarthy.
The sale was brokered by agents engaged by Bovale and Nama, indicating the proceeds will be used to reduce company debts with Nama. Nama declined to comment on any aspect of its Bovale dealings.
Unlimited companies such as Bovale are not required to make public filings of their financial accounts. However, a recent auditor’s report by KPMG warned of “material uncertainty” over Bovale’s ability to continue as a going concern.
“The group and company’s loan facilities with its lenders, the National Asset Management Agency, have expired and have not been formally renewed,” KPMG said in October.
“The directors are in ongoing discussions with Nama, the funding provider. While progress has been made during the year, the loans have not yet been formally renewed.”
Bovale did not respond to questions submitted by email to two company officials asking about Mr Bailey’s return to the board and the company’s Nama debts.
Accounts for Willsgrove, the British company, show it incurred a pretax loss of £817,000 in 2023 after the generating £3 million from the sale of its remaining UK property.
“It is the director’s intention to liquidate the company as soon as possible. Approval has been requested from Nama to commence the liquidation process,” said the directors’ report.
