Where did all the wealth from selling property during the boom go? Melted away “like the snows in spring”

The Independent together with property specialist and arguably lead-NAMA valuer, CB Richard Ellis, have compiled the top 20 property deals during the boom. Here is a table compiled on here but based on the information in the article – some of the individual deals are aggregated eg the Bank of Ireland and AIB disposal of their HQs and branches. (UPDATE: it has been pointed out that some of Joe O’Reilly’s transactions are missing from the list and indeed there is no reference to them in the Independent article – the table below has been updated)

Trinity College Dublin professors, Brian Lucey and Constantin Gurdgiev offer commentary on the transactions. A key question is where did the money go? The answer it seems is that it mostly went on to fuel further property speculation which turned sour or to buy shares or disastrous financial products. Notable exceptions are the Jurys Doyle family who sold three hotels at the peak of the market, Paul Coulson of Ardagh Glass who sold the Irish Glass Bottle site, Sir Marc Cochrane who sold a site in Woodbrook(Shankill) and the sellers of the Millennium Park in Kildare, Jerry Conlon and Dermot O’Rourke. As for the rest the money has in the words of Brian Lucey largely “gone like the snows in spring”. It seems it is up to NAMA to restore wintry conditions so that some proceeds can be derived from the loans purchased, most of which are represented in the list above.