The important news is that Irish Bank Resolution Corporation is nearing its 6-week window which it was giving its large borrowers to refinance their loans, and developer and businessman Paddy McKillen is reported to be amongst IBRC’s largest borrowers with personal loans, variously reported at €300-370m and corporate loans reported at €550m. But all that horsetrading is taking place behind closed doors, though after recent injunctions and freedom of information requests, the participants on the IBRC side know that their actions will be closely scrutinized for probity.
So, it really is just flim-flam to re-report Paddy’s attendance at a New York society event this week where his pal and business associate Bono – seen here at the party, looking pissed (in an American sense) -was paying tribute to a Dublin artist Sean Scully who has one exhibition on the go at the moment and is opening a new exhibition of his work in New York shortly.
The 400 guests at the event included Michael Stipe of R.E.M.- fame, and our own Paddy, who Bloomberg reported, donated wines for the evening from his Chateau La Coste in France. Other guests included Eric Rudin of Rudin Capital Management. We’re all still wondering where Paddy found the readies to fund a rights issue at Coroin last year, and given the judge in Paddy’s High Court action didn’t seem very impressed with the adequacy of Paddy’s access to finance to buy Derek Quinlan’s shares, we’re left scratching our heads wondering how Paddy came up with €65m equivalent in December 2012 to meet his allotment under the rights issue and defeat a clear attempt by the Barclay brothers to dilute him.
Paddy’s vineyard at Chateau La Coste near Aix-en-Provence is part of a 600-acre development dubbed “Xanadu” which features architecture and sculpture on a sublime scale, including sculptures by moonlighting REM-frontman Michael Stipe.
NAMA Wine Lake 
Disappointing to see you blog lose its focus. What began as an informative serious report on the economic and political developments of the economic crisis seems to have progressively descended into trashy tabloid reports and caricatures. This seems to be the clearest example yet. Many of Ireland’s leading figures in business have interests in the arts, sport or elsewhere but their daily activities is of little interest to namawinelake beyond gossip. It’s a shame, as I found this site very a interesting insight into the Irish situation.
@Jonny, thanks for your insight. There are at least three matters of interest in the blogpost above for the general audience on here, the main one being the fact that Paddy seemingly has a very large debt to the State because of the clownish nationalisation of IBRC and he has assets including the odd Xanadu project and it is helpful to keep that in mind; two other matters are less obvious, but trust me, they are there.
I agree with JF : Is he paying his debts? Has he defaulted? If not then I suggest that his personal spending habits are about as relevant as any mortgage holder with AIB.
it seems to me that he is in sharp contrast to his former business partner who is still sitting on his “fat @rse running up expensive hotel bills”
like the need to change the limited liabilty law????Yes Mr. Burke ,we do understand it.The late Sam Mc Cormick explained it to me many years ago. About the same time he was explaining why a particular politician was “taking tea” just before an election. The same politician who replied, when I asked him ,why Fine Gael did not go more robustly after the source of Mr. Haugheys money replied “because we do not know what might fall out of ou rown cupboard”
My own opinion is that Paddy McKillen is not living this high on the hoc _despite_ the debts he ran up for the Irish people.
My opinion is that he is living high on the hoc, _because_ of the debts he ran up for the Irish people.
One way or another, we’re paying for that vinyard, and that wine; Make no mistake about it. The best thing Mr. McKillen could do for the rest of us is to stay in his chateaus abroad and never come back.
BTW, have you ever drunk the La Coste wine? Its about suitable for wanabee New Yorkers (and Bono)….