Continuing to play no small part in supporting the most expensive market for legal services in Europe, NAMA has launched legal proceedings against the developer behind Chieftain Construction, Limerick-man Ger O’Rourke and his wife, Majella – it is the two individuals that NAMA is suing, not the company. The NAMA entity that made the application on Thursday last 19th April, 2012 at Dublin’s High Court is National Asset Loan Management Limited and is represented by Dublin solicitors, Whitney Moore which I believe is the first time this firm has been used by the Agency. The case reference is 2012 / 1451 S
Ger O’Rourke, aged 50 – pictured here on his €0.5m racing yacht – has been in the wars for some time and has previously had a €21m judgment awarded against him in favour of AIB and in March 2012, the Limerick Leader reported him saying that he had debts of over €100m with assets of less than €4m. His wife Majella had been a director of Chieftain but this is the first time that I have seen husband and wife sued by the Agency in their own right.
Chieftain Construction has been behind major projects here, in the US, South Africa and the UK including a €50m hotel-centred redevelopment around Liverpool’s Lime Street railway station.
We don’t yet have details of the current application. In the past, NAMA has taken legal action against individuals to enforce personal guarantees or to secure personal judgments, but it should be stressed that we do not know if either of these objectives lies behind the current application.
UPDATE: 24th January 2013. The Phoenix Magazine in Dublin, out today, claims that NAMA is pursuing two remedies against Ger O’Rourke and his wife, Majella. Firstly there is a €435,000 judgment against the Limerick developer, and secondly there is the reversal of the transfer of what is described as the family home at Mill House, Ballyclogh, County Limerick. A judgment is awaited.
Well done Nama. This is great news for the tax payers and to the people left high and dry by this individual.
Keep the momentum going Nama
@Shafted, Er, What difference did it make? He can probably paper the walls with judgments at this point.
Well what else do you think NAMA should be doing….???
Please advise because I think NAMA are finding it hard to progress at a fast rate with all these developers. The resources they have are limited and they sometimes have to rely on the general public for information.
If the general public have any other information regarding any other developer, i would recommend sending it into NAMA.
I do hope also that they sue their children because i understand that everything that they controlled has been transfered to them and is out of arms reach.
To gauge how good NAMA has done on this guy is to see how many yacht races he will enter in the future……
Its a hard life but someone has to pay for it.
In this particular case it is the people and companies that lost out by their involuntary liquidation along with the tax payers footing the stupid amount of monies this guy has borrowed to fund land bank purchases along with the lavish lifestyle it brings, namely helicopters, racing yaghts & lavish mansions…
@Shafted, I think that it should be doing what it was legislated to do – manage its portfolio.
@shafted, don’t believe everything NAMA puts out there.The transferring of assets to trusts or other structures if done BEFORE,any proceedings and as a part of tax or estate planning is perfectly and completely legal.Running or operating a business can lead to vexatious and ‘ambulance chasing’ litigation, if you are a ‘deep pocket’ its quite common and tax effective to shelter/shield assets from potential litigation,issues arise if you follow that course after the litigation has commenced !
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0418/1224314875267.html
The gentleman above gainfully employed 400 people who paid taxes and spent their salaries/wages locally.As someone who gets seasick I never understood the appeal of yachts,but would it not be better for everyone if he could declare BK,get a fresh start and go back to what he clearly was good at.
This is a pointless PR exercise by NAMA,to garner public opinion and distract from its very very serious structural and operational issues,starting with its practically INSOLVENT.
How much will NAMA recover here and how much legal fees will be incurred,you are paying them.These are not commercial decisions,but spiteful,small minded civil servants trying to prove a point,and ingratiate themselves with Joe Public.
So remind me again what some of these Guys where good at?Some of them wouldn’t be fit to run the Corner shop never mind run multi Million Euro Property Development Companies,They weren’t good at what they did they just got lucky and now the Ordinary Taxpayer is left to Clean up after them when they Clear off to England or where ever else they turn up. Its very easy to Run away. However agree with WSTT that NAMA has failed totally in what it was set up to do,Asset Management with a long term view not this idea of get money in fast.
@patrick looks like he’s a very competent sailor as per the picture,but did not anticipate the ‘perfect storm’.
Never met him, don’t know much about him but had 400 employees,completed over 2 billion of projects.
None of the property developers borrowed from the taxpayer,they were for the most part arms length commercial transactions.The banks should have been allowed fail,check out Spain,no way they will do a NAMA,in fact I doubt it will ever be done anywhere again.
No one is ‘running’ away,what choice do they have,they need to make a living get on with their lives.
“Taxpayer funds wouldn’t be used, and no bank would have control of the property entities, meaning they wouldn’t have to consolidate the companies’ results and asset values on their own balance sheets, the official said today. He declined to be named as the plan is still being considered. Banks would transfer the assets at market prices to the companies, which would be run by independent managers, and will have to book a loss if that price is below the value for which an asset has been provisioned.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-23/spain-banks-may-create-companies-for-real-estate-official-says.html
“what were these guys good at?” is a fair question.
Anyone can hire a bunch of people, build an office block with apartments in a green field, then walk away. That’s easy. leaving small business and taxpayers with the bill, easy too.
Mandatory minimum wage social work, cleaning piers etc. for life, is too fair and too simple a solution for those bailed out by the taxpayer. There should be some pain too.
A little more to it than that !
Linked some of Chieftain’s completed projects,an alternative approach is to ‘bond’ him,put him back in business and take a piece of NewCo.Apply,any future profits to further debt reduction.Maybe,have him finish any un-completed projects at cost.
The current approach is Not working,how much legal fee’s will NAMA incur,how much do they expect to recover.These are not commercial decisions,NAMA is financially immature like the rest of Ireland!
http://www.chieftainglobal.com/completed.php
“In June last year, O’Rourke told the High Court AIB had courted his business aggressively and had abandoned basic lending principles by ‘‘throwing’’ money at him without looking for independent land valuations or doing proper due diligence.
AIB had sought judgements of €20.7m against O’Rourke but the court ruled that O’Rourke had an arguable defence to the bank’s claim and was entitled to a full hearing of the matter.”
http://pascalfitzgerald.webs.com/westbury.htm
Give them all [both sides] a copy of Fred Schwed’s humorous 1940 classic about Wall Street’s insatiable greed entitled: Where Are the Customers’ Yachts?
“Investment and speculation are said to be two different things, and the prudent man is advised to engage in the one and avoid the other. This is something like explaining to the troubled adolescent that Love and Passion are two different things. He perceives that they are different, but they don’t seem quite different enough to clear up his problems.”
Fine upstanding men.
Buy when there’s blood in the streets…
http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/business/limerick_developers_caught_up_in_libyan_chaos_1_2473742
@Dorothy Jones,agreed the Yacht,not a good look,some suggestions it may have been inadvertently left off asset list!
@WGU it’s one of the nicer labour camps……
http://www.chieftainglobal.com/labour.php
The bigger issue,is this a good use of NAMA’s time energy and resources?
@John Gallagher
No it is not….Fortsetzung folgt….
@Dorothy Jones,agreed,better discussion minus the windswept picture of yachtsmen !
@John Gallagher
More nautical fun and games here:
http://www.chieftainracing.com/
@John Gallagher
A taste of the business acumen:
http://www.thepropertypin.com/viewtopic.php?p=230041#p230041
@WGU rising tide lifts all boats,and all that.Interesting,to follow how this plays out,I doubt there is much to recover,hopefully,proven wrong.
@John Gallaher
And, to continue the apposite water analogies, as the lad Buffet says: “It’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked.”
@WGU given the links provided and the penchant for expensive racing yachts,I have my doubts there is much left.
Nice way for NAMA,to garner some positive PR and distract people,are they finishing any of the projects,adding value or enriching lawyers with more and more expensive and ultimately futile litigation ?
@John Gallaher
NAMA is a busted flush on the asset management front.
This is the bread-and-butter “rearguard” bank stuff – shoot the deserters, pour encourager les autres to go over the top.
If NAMAnstein had never been brought to life the zombie banks would have been doing this stuff anyway.
It’s the ungodly, doing the work of the undead, on the unsaveable.
@WGU it will be interesting,but a lot of these people who are leaving or “running” from Ireland,will go forward create jobs and have second acts in business,many of them successfully after perhaps failling in Ireland.Faced,with endless and expensive litigation and no future,what would any sane businessman do.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
Roosevelt.
NAMA will be judged on how well it managed the assets that it inherited and how much value it recovered from those assets. Chasing already heavily mortgaged boats and paintings and smelling WAGs’ knickers while enjoyable for some perverts is not he way to make a success of the Agency’s brief. As McDonagh (or was it Frank) said – there is no pot of gold there….. So can we get on with the main agenda….please?
In relation to all the criticism about developers, buiders et al laying all their debts onto the taxpayer – They didn’t. They entered into a privsate commercial contract with the banks; one that both parties should have been left to sort out themselves and let the losses fall where they may. That is the capitalist way. Instead we had twerps of arrogant politicians who, full of hubris, thought that it was a great “stroke” to guarantee the Irish banks and socialise the losses over the whole taxpaying population. Let’s put the blame for spreading the losses where it belongs – with Messrs Cowen and Lenihan.
@WSTT the bankers and regulators and advisors are also to blame,there has been some discussion that the bankers were not very forthright about the lack of quality in the loan books.
@JG, Accepted, John. Very true. I shouldn’t just pick on the obviously easy targets.
I remember the night after the guarantee was given. I happened to pass by the Merrion Hotel. There was a scrum of media around the front door surrounding the MoF and various ebullient lesser political mortals celebrating their great “coup”.
In the middle of the joyous mob bathing in the reflected glory was our floppy reddish haired celebrity economist. I wonder how much blame he shares?
@wstt…an old argument indeed, but the argument is made muddy by the fact that the political class and the elite business class in Ireland (as elsewhere) are two sides of the same coin. A coin minted with the weakest of alloys.
On developers…personally, I believe a skilled knowledgeable businessman would not destroy a green field and leave only bricks and dirt. They might screw up, but not that way.
@WSTT fundamentally,it was Cowen’s call,apparently not a cabinet decision.
We can’t blame advisors,ok we can…..difficult to say,non carrear enhancing.
Is the Chieftan Irish portfolio,representive of typical Irish developers collateral ?
If you had to guess is a lot of it on non NAMA,covered banks?
We are waiting for him to sign of accounts on a management company down in Limerick. Receivers have agreed to write of a reduced ‘inter-company’ loan from C186€ to C76€. A ‘loan’ taken out while his yacht was there in dry dock needing repairs. Coinky-dink? While the new committee is not chasing him on the legal front it is my opinion that the man is as crooked at tacking in to the wind, to use a nautical term. Allowing him to go back in to business is like asking an alcoholic to look after an off-license.
@ John Gallagher I agree with most of what you write. The law is an ass and only those with deep pockets should play.