Having established itself as one of Ireland’s most successful alternative investment managers with a client base stretching from the United States to Europe and Asia, Abbey Capital is making the move from its base next to Dublin’s Rotunda Hospital to a new statement headquarters on the south side of the city.
With its long-standing offices at Cavendish Row now on the market at a guide price of €4.2 million, the company founded by veteran investment managers Tony Gannon and Tim Brosnan, is relocating to number 8 St Stephen’s Green after quietly acquiring the property in September.
While Paddy McKillen jnr and Matt Ryan’s Oakmount had been closing in the purchase of building for €17 million last June as part of a wider bid to assemble a large site for a hotel to be operated as part of their Press Up Hospitality Group, that deal fell away at the 11th hour.
Abbey Capital stepped into the breach within weeks with an offer to buy the home of the former Hibernian United Services Club for €16 million. The price paid represented a discount of just over 25 per cent on the €20 million agent Cushman & Wakefield had been guiding when it first offered the property for sale last year. While The Irish Times reported on the sale of the property to an Irish purchaser in September, the identity of the new owner was subject to a strict non-disclosure agreement.
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The building, widely acknowledged as one of Dublin’s finest Georgian properties, had until recently served as home to the Dublin headquarters of Axa subsidiary the XL Group. It comprises a substantial four-storey over-basement townhouse dating from about 1770. Occupied and owned originally for just under 25 years by Lord Mountgarret, it was acquired by the aforementioned Hibernian United Services Club in 1845 for use as a gentlemen’s club.
While the property was subject to successive Victorian remodelling, the quality of its original build and later modifications, and of its interior, are noted on the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. The building is included on Dublin City Council’s Record of Protected Structures and is within a “zone of archaeological interest”.
