Aside from his meat processing business which prompted a tribunal,

If I recall correctly, Goodman & Co. were issued enormous amounts of credit/credit insurance by the Irish State (Albert Reynolds really) to “sell” meat(“meat”) to Iraq.

I regard Larry Goodman as the premier example of the “semi-private” sector in this country: Nominally the companies are private, but in reality the vast majority of revenues ultimately come from the public treasury. In Goodman’s case, they came very directly out of the public purse; he could not have made the money he did, or gotten into as much trouble as he dit, without the obscene levels of credit export insurance gifted to him by Albert Reynolds.

Makes you want to ask “Where’s my few hundred million punts in export insurance to sell broke Iraqis sloppy pig meat?”, “Where’s my state backed debt write off and comeback?”, “What’s the point of this country?”

Larry has interests in private hospitals including the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin and the Blackrock Clinic in Galway and there has been talk of a new facility in the grounds of the exclusive Adare Manor in Limerick.

The idea of the Beef Tribunal’s star meat processor running a few private hospitals amuses me no end. I wonder if all those private patients have considered what they might be getting themselves into.

This is a building that an employee of the Bank of Ireland described as “the only building in town where you wipe your shoes on the way out.”

Current rental value after refurbishment = €5 million

Purchase Cost €35 m
Refurbishment = €35 million
Design/ Interest/ Legals/ Agents > €5 million
Voids (minimum 2years) > €10 million
Total cost = €85 million

So without a tenant, it is all risk for little return. Not something that Larry would subscribe to.

Ten foreign Private Equity funds chase it, but were “also rans”.
It is known in the market that the receivers KPMG would like to move into it.
Larry and KPMG have a long standing umbilical relationship, through many “ups and downs”.
Larry wins bidding process…..

I see that nothing much has changed in how business is done in Ireland since I left. KPMG always wanted this building.