McKillen 'owns property worth €45m'

PROPERTY DEVELOPER Patrick McKillen owns €45 million worth of properties around the world that have not been used as security…

PROPERTY DEVELOPER Patrick McKillen owns €45 million worth of properties around the world that have not been used as security against his debts, according to a court document.

The details are given in a final witness statement from Mr McKillen’s associate, Liam Cunningham, which the McKillen side has refused for a week to release to the press.

Following representations from The Irish Times and the Irish Independent, Mr Justice David Richards made clear that all witness statements had to be made public, minus redactions.

In the long-running High Court case in London, Mr McKillen has argued he was improperly blocked from buying financier, Derek Quinlan’s controlling share in a luxury London hotel group.

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In a schedule attached to Mr Cunningham’s statement, valuations are placed on a string of properties, including offices in the UK, Germany, Argentina and France and apartments and development lands in Vietnam.

Insisting that Mr McKillen could have afforded to buy Mr Quinlan’s share, Mr Cunningham said Mr McKillen had been offered loans costing €13 million a year in interest. The property developer, he said, “holds a substantial unencumbered property portfolio that he could, if necessary, sell in order to raise” the funds needed.

The properties listed include the Northpoint Argentina Logistic centre and office campus, which was valued by Colliers International in March 2011 at € 19.7 million.

A number of other Argentinian properties are listed without valuation, including the Andillian Argentina Vineyard gated community and the Isabel/Be Experience complex of galleries and bars.

In France, he owns a commercial property on Boulevard San Germain valued at € 1.7 million, on which an offer to buy was made in September 2010 by a French university. In Aix-en-Provence, Mr Cunningham listed a car park valued at €1 million, while a property at 26 Rue Danton in Paris is valued at €1.055 million once an outstanding loan of €629,516 is deducted.

A home on Paris’s Place Vendôme, which has just €14,000 worth of outstanding debt, is valued at €8.45 million, while a commercial property in Knightsbridge, London, is valued at more than €7 million, once debts are excluded. The Vietnamese properties listed include a site at Dalat with planning permission and shops and housingwhile another listed as Habotec has planning permission for a biotechnology park.

Mark Hennessy

Mark Hennessy

Mark Hennessy is Ireland and Britain Editor with The Irish Times