There has been a slow start to NAMA’s foreclosure activity in 2013, with no new court cases in Ireland. Yesterday though, we learned from Iris Oifigiuil that on 4th January 2013, NAMA had Michael McAteer at Grant Thornton appointed as receiver to assets of Tailored Homes (Irl) Limited, one of the many companies controlled by Northern Ireland’s Taggart brothers, Michael Taggart and John Taggart. Their group has been in trouble for nearly five years, and in July 2010, the administrator to a group of Northern Irish companies reported trouble in disposing of the group’s twin-engined Eurocopter EC 135 helicopter – on which there was a GBP 2m (€2.5m) outstanding loan – because the engines had been damaged. The collapse in Northern Ireland left debts estimated at up to GBP 300m. NAMA appears to be mopping up in 2013, and it is not clear what assets are subject to yesterday’s receivership.
The directors of Tailored Homes (Irl) Limited are Michael Taggart (46) and John Taggart (53) and it appears that John Taggart owns 100% of this company which was incorporated in 2004. Its latest accounts for 2009 showed nearly €10m of negative shareholder funds.
Remember you can see the list of NAMA’s enforcement actions here and in this regularly updated spreadsheet.
NAMA Wine Lake 
Nama has one other former Taggart asset which came to them much earlier in the process – it’s on the enforcement list as Lylehill Road, Templepatrick.
Most of the other assets which would have been eligible were sold on the Taggart administrators, PwC, before Nama existed. The bulk of the BoI funded stuff was sold to a consortium of McGinnis, Pat McCormack and Michael Herbert. The Anglo-backed Millmount site was picked up by Lagans on a non-recourse basis and ended up being enforced anyway. Speaking of which Baker Tilly’s search for expressions of interest in Millmount seems to have come to nought and there’s now a Lisney ‘for sale’ sign on the site.
The Taggarts are engaged in hand-to-hand legal fighting with Ulster Bank over PGs. These were signed very late in the day and Michael said they were only signed in a ‘gun to the head’ situation. The case is going to come down to a ‘he said/ she said’ between Michael and a partner at Tughans.
Michael evidently feels very badly treated by Ulster and in particular its former head of property in the north, Henry Elvin.