Sean Dunne’s creditors

I believe the revelation of the overall value of Sean Dunne’s creditors last night – put at USD 942m on his filing – took some by surprise, with the expectation the total would have been closer to the USD 500m lower limit in the range Sean had indicated in his initial filing on 29th March 2013. Sean has even omitted a liability when he notes the amount owing to KPMG as “unknown”.

This is a brief blogpost on the creditors. Firstly this is the list sorted in descending order. We had previously known of a €164m (USD 215m) judgment against Sean in favour of Ulster Bank, so it was a surprise to see Sean listing his Number 1 debtor as Ulster Bank owed USD 394,334,536.  It was also surprising to see another NAMA developer, O’Flynn Construction listed as being owed USD 102,061,490; however, it is understood that this loan was in de facto provided by Irish Nationwide Building Society and the loan has since been transferred to NAMA, so it is NOT O’Flynn Construction which is the owed the money. Alas, NAMA won’t comment on individual loans.

If we group the loans according to assignment, we see that NAMA is in fact Sean Dunne’s largest creditor with USD 445,323,628 owed, comprising original loans from IBRC of USD 188,216,722 and Bank of Ireland of 151,158,009 and O’Flynn Construction of USD 102,061,490. Bank of Scotland’s loans appear to have been all assigned to Certus though a company incorporated last November 2012 called Risali Limited appears to have acquired USD 16,975,267 of those loans.

If we group the loans according to type, we see that an astonishing USD 612,217,333 is “unsecured non priority” with only USD 280,215,656 secured. All of the banks appear to have been guilty of advancing loans not secured on specific property, which must surely call into question further the behavior of Irish banks during the boom.

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Why is Paddy McKillen conducting his negotiations with IBRC, through the press?

There is deep concern on here at the special liquidation of IBRC which will see some €16bn of assets disposed of, or transferred to NAMA over the next six months* The disposal of the assets is taking place behind a curtain of secrecy and Minister for Finance Michael Noonan refuses to extend NAMA’s anti-lobbying rules to the IBRC liquidation, which means what stands between these assets and shenanigans is the professionalism of the special liquidator, Kieran Wallace of KPMG. KPMG has appointed UBS and PwC to value the loans but Minister Noonan refuses to publish the request for procurement citing commercial confidentiality. We don’t even know what the assets IBRC would have had in February 2013, because Minister Noonan refuses to publish accounts for the second half of 2012, so the latest reporting we have on IBRC is for the six months ended 30th June 2012.

We are still apparently at the phase of the IBRC liquidation when existing borrowers at IBRC can refinance their loans; and when this phase is over, the loans will be offered to the market at no less than the valuation placed on the loans by PwC and UBS. So, right now, IBRC’s borrowers are scrambling about to refinance their loans, we believe at 100% of their par values, though Minister Noonan refused to confirm last week if all refinanced loans were repaid 100%, citing commercial confidentiality.

And the most vociferous of the IBRC borrowers by a country mile has been developer and businessman Paddy McKillen who gets a platform in today’s Irish Times – here and here – to attack the IBRC special liquidator, the Department of Finance and NAMA. Paddy is reported to have offered to pay €180m upfront for loans with a par value of €800m, with the remainder repaid in full by 2016. Trouble is that IBRC is being wound down now, and by 2016 should be just a bad national memory. So it is unclear what Paddy expects IBRC to do with his loans between now and 2016 – he has previously fought a battle against NAMA to stop his loans being taken over by the Agency, so does he expect IBRC to be kept open specially for him?

The Special Liquidator at IBRC is reported by Paddy in the Irish Times to have declined the €180m upfront offer so Paddy has a platform to have a whine and make all sorts of claims but the Special Liquidator’s position is not reported. A request for comment was made to Kieran Wallace this morning but there was no response at time of writing, and the likelihood is that no comment will be forthcoming on a specific loan anyway.

You will be hard-pressed to find any greater display of chutzpah in the media today than when Paddy is quoted as saying : “One billion euro of that amount [€2.1bn] has already been repaid to the State at full value” Paddy is seemingly referring to his borrowings from Irish banks. But, this presumably includes the €800m “repaid” after NAMA sold €800m of loans in the Maybourne group, to the Barclay brothers. Even though he eventually lost, Paddy, memorably, went to court in the UK to stop that transfer! Paddy was asked to comment on the €1bn repayment and for an outline of his repayment plans between now and 2016, but at time of writing there has not yet been a response.

What we all know is that some of Paddy’s IBRC loans relate to his stake in the Maybourne set of three luxury London hotels, Claridge’s, the Berkeley and the Connaught. And the Barclay brothers who own 28% of Maybourne, and have received support from Derek Quinlan’s 36%, have made no secret of their desire to acquire Paddy’s 36% stake or at least dilute him to such an extent that his influence as a minority shareholder would be nugatory. It has been reported that the Barclays would be prepared to pay in excess of the market value for Paddy’s Maybourne loans, and no doubt, Paddy will use all his considerable acumen to prevent that from happening.

But negotiating through the national press with a Special Liquidator that is presumably constrained in his ability to comment? Paddy has a right to refinance his loans right now at 100% and no-one, not Minister Noonan, Secretary General Moran, Special Liquidator Kieran Wallace nor NAMA’s Brendan McDonagh can stop Paddy in doing that. Meantime, they all have the duty to maximize returns from these assets.

* The original plan was for most of the unsold IBRC loans to be transferred to NAMA in August 2013, but press reporting has since suggested this has slipped, and Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has refused to provide an updated estimate.

UPDATE: 5th May, 2013. In the Sunday Independent today, Tom Lyons provides additional information on Paddy’s negotiations. He claims that the offer to refinance the €180m of loans was at “a relatively minor single digit write down”. A 9% write down would equate to about €16m, but we don’t know the “single digit” so it might conceivably have been €1.8m, which is still significant to a man who reportedly sought approval of what the Sunday Times last week called an “emergency loan” from IBRC in October 2012 of GBP 5-5.9m (€5.9-€7m). The Sunday Times indicates that although the facility was approved, it was never drawn down by Paddy who had other options. So there are mixed messages from the incident with suggestions that Paddy was in a corner financially, but at the same time, Paddy had options and didn’t need draw down an approved loan.

Tom writes in the Sindo today that the refinancing offer was “provisionally agreed” with IBRC in December 2012 but that the Special Liquidator of IBRC, Kieran Wallace has subsequently been holding firm to the position that refinancing be at 100% until such time that the loans are independently valued and offered to the market. Despite Minister Noonan’s refusal to confirm this was the case two weeks ago, citing commercial confidentiality, I also understand that it is KPMG’s position that loans be refinanced at 100% only in the refinancing window which will expire shortly.

Eyebrows might be raised in some quarters at the claim in Tom’s report that Paddy’s 36-7% stake in Coroin, the company that owns, the three hotels might be worth €200m. Even after the rights issue late last year, that looks ambitious for what remains, when you strip away the razzamatazz surrounding three lumps of performing bricks and mortar in central London, a heavily indebted company producing relatively modest profits.

 

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Of the Week…

Corner turned of the Week

This week, the Irish Banking Federation issued its monthly mortgage approvals statistics which showed a slight improvement over February and January 2013, but on an annual basis both the monthly and year to date approvals are down from the abysmal figures in 2012. The closure of the window in December 2012 for First Time Buyer mortgage interest relief has been widely blamed for the slow-down and Property Industry Ireland warned the Government and asked for some cushioning of the withdrawal and all they got was the property tax relief which is worth on average less than €100 in 2013.

However, returning to the IBF, Japlandic noted that what the IBF is reporting each month is approvals rather than actual draw-downs which are reported quarterly. There is a distinct difference between draw-downs and approvals as the graphs above show, and despite the ever-Pollyannaish claims by the IBF, mortgage lending remains moribund.

(Graphic above produced by Japlandic.com, contact here)

Old media having difficulty with new media of the Week

Sean Dunne’s statement of affairs was filed late last night in Connecticut and it was first reported on here, but throughout the night the RTE US correspondent Richard Downes was tweeting his heart out. Trouble was, he was getting some of his facts muddled, claiming Mountbrook USA was paying Sean USD 22,000 a month, it’s actually USD 8,333. Heads were also scratched, wondering where Richard got his claim that Sean had paid his bankruptcy lawyers USD 30,612 but the betting on here is that he took the actual payment of USD 15,000 and the bankruptcy filing fee of USD 306 and doubled it! The Tweet claims were partially reported by RTE this morning together with an observation that Sean had omitted any of the US properties developed and sold by Sean’s wife, Gayle. And why would they have been included? Gayle is not Sean, nor is she bankrupt. Maybe, it was just a late night for Richard.

Skibbereen Eagle of the Week

In 1897, the now defunct pipsqueak Skibbereen Eagle warned the Tsar of Russia “the Skibbereen Eagle was keeping its eye on the Czar of Russia” as rumours spread of a planned invasion of China by Russia. Earlier this year, the Oireachtas joint committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade threatened to copy the United States and create a so-called “Magnitsky List” – a list of Russian nationals suspected of involvement in the arrest, mistreatment and death of a Russian accountant, Sergei Magnitsky who was arrested after he started to investigate state-level fraud in tax matters of the US company Hermitage Capital Management. On 11th March, 2013, the Russian ambassador to Ireland warned that if Ireland did follow the US and progress with sanctions, then Russia would cut off the baby pipeline, and not allow adoptions of Russian children by Irish residents. On Thursday this week, the spineless Oireachtas committee issued a statement merely calling for investigation into Sergei’s horrible death; sanctions are no longer on the menu so the baby pipeline remains open. The Russians are sensitive about the incident and President Vladimir Putin has told foreign countries to keep their noses out of internal Russian affairs.

Money fact of the Week

Seems everything costs so much money these days. Even money. We learned this week how much it costs to make specie or coins to you and me. A week ago, we learned that in Ireland, it costs 1.65 cents to create a 1 cent piece. Proposals are being examined which might lead to the withdrawal of 1c and 2c pieces from circulation, so prices would be rounded up, or rounded down (yeah, right!) to the nearest 5c.

2c          2.07c
5c          3.01c
10c         5.16c
20c         6.76c
50c         8.27c
1 Euro   9.75c
2 Euro   14.25c

Quote of the Week

“The children who are here today are growing up in a continent of peace, they belong to the euro generation, they have only known one currency, we are happy for them to be with us on this occasion to mark the launch of the next generation of euro banknotes” ECB president Mario Draghi launching the new €5 banknote in Bratislava, Slovakia on Thursday.

In a week when EuroZone unemployment hit 12.1%, the highest level on records dating back to 1995 and with some countries reporting youth unemployment in excess of 50%, this was also the week when ECB president Mario Draghi launched the new €5 bank note – looks like this – and also the week that he oversaw the ECB trimming its main interest rate from 0.75% to a record low of 0.5%. The ECB’s primary objective is price stability – or in layman’s terms, keeping inflation at under but close to 2% – and it doesn’t see inflationary pressure in the short term, which is not surprising as most economies are limping along, most teetering on, or actual in, recession. On the latter point, this was the week when RTE was heard on here uttering the R-word for the first time since the CSO produced figures on 21st March 2013 which showed the last two quarters had contracting GDP, the most widely acknowledged criterion for recession, when on Drive Time, Sean Whelan was heard to say the economy “may or may not have tipped back into a technical recession before Christmas”. The reduction in interest rates to a record low was an acknowledgment that the short term outlook for Europe, on which we depend for buying our exports, is not good.

Tracker heaven and hell of the Week

The ECB lowered its main interest rate this week from 0.75% to a record low of 0.5%. In (the Republic of) Ireland, 400,000 of the near-800,000 principal residence mortgages are believed to be tracker mortgages. So great news for them – with a €200,000 mortgage, a 0.25% reduction is €500 a year or €40 a month before tax effects. In Northern Ireland however, 550 mortgage holders got a shock when our own Bank of Ireland raised the margin on its trackers from 0.85% to 2.49% meaning that, with a Bank of England base rate of a record low of 0.5%, 550 Northern Ireland mortgage borrowers saw their monthly repayment more than double from 1.35% to 2.99%. Bank of Ireland was seemingly relying on a term in the small print of its mortgage contracts which allowed it to vary the margin premium added to the base rate, if its costs increased. Seems to have taken many by surprise, and it affects 13,500 throughout the UK.

Diary of the Week

For some unknown reason, this week, the Secretary General at the Department of Finance decided to release his diary for January 2013. John Moran’s days are truly riveting though he seems to have a penchant for meeting with (non-Irish) banks. One meeting which might be of interest on here is from 18^th January 2013 when John meet with Eastdil, the “real estate investment banking company”, which days later was revealed to be company managing the sale of the €810m Project Aspen, the portfolio of loans relating to Dublin property owned by developer, David Courtney. What a coincidence, or is the Department of Finance getting its hands dirtier than might be generally believed.

How much do you earn of the Week

We austerity taking its toll on most people’s lives, and with the State sticking its nose into every enterprise, we might have lost sight of the capitalist dream of mega-bucks at the top. In the US this week, Bloomberg published its summary pay levels in 250 companies in the S&P 500, showing the pay of the CEO compared to the median salary company. JC Penny department store – nothing whatsoever to do with our own Penny’s – came out on top with its CEO earning a whopping 1,791 times its median salary. The average across all 250 companies was a multiple of 204 which is 20% greater than 2009. I wonder will we ever see such an analysis in the Irish media?

 Crime of the Week

This week, the Central Statistics Office published its statistics on Irish crime for 2007-11. The statistics show relatively high detection rates for serious crimes, but burglary, the bugbear of Middle Ireland shows just 25% detection rates, and the rates haven’t changed much in the past five years.

Chart of the Week

This was the week when the Central Bank of Ireland unveiled its report and accounts for 2012.  There’s a wealth of information contained in the report, which confirms the amount of surplus to be returned to the Exchequer in respect of the 2012 profit, during the next month will be €1,148m, up from €958m in 2011. It sounds impressive but the surplus is mostly interest paid by state-owned banks for accessing loans so the banks pay the interest to the Central Bank, who pays the surplus to the State which has capitalized the banks, and if you accept what the Governor of the Central Bank, Patrick Honohan, said this week, those banks will need more capital.

Putdown of the Week

“The Garda Commissioner has heard the allegations made in the public media this morning 30th April 2013, by the Garda Representative Association President Garda John Parker. The Commissioner has no information or evidence of the allegations being spoken about.  Accordingly the Garda Commissioner is now calling on Garda Parker to clarify his position and provide any information or evidence he has concerning this matter.” Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan on 30th April, 2013 delivering a slap-down to “Garda Parker” who claimed that crime statistics were being massaged.

The Garda Representative Association which represents the rank-and-file below-sargeant-and-inspector-level met in Sligo this week and it made a strange accusation against itself. It accused itself of massaging the crime figures reported by the Central Statistics Office. The two accusations at the heart of the matter were that certain crimes were being misclassified to less serious crimes, eg an attempted burglary where there was a broken lock or window was classified as criminal damage and secondly, that crimes were not being recorded at all unless a written statement was made by the victim. The GRA  criticized the decision to close police stations. If you were of a cynical nature, you might suspect that the GRA was antsy because its members still face cuts to their pay and conditions in Croke Park 2.1 and because the Gardai can’t strike, being belligerent in the hope of concessions might be the most forceful it can be. Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan was upset again, and called on Garda Parker – reminding him who was boss – to justify his claims that crime figures were massaged. Garda Parker had to put up or shut up, and he chose the latter. Elsewhere, the Garda Commissioner rejected the calls for more high powered cars with the GRA claiming their fleet were no better than lawn-mowers in chasing down mobile burglary gangs. Perhaps Commissioner Callinan was concerned the roads around Tourmakeady would turn into this

Healthy statistic of the Week

This was the week when an Irish organization Tobacco Free Research Institute claimed that 3,700 of us are still walking this earth as a result of the workplace smoking ban in 2004. Seems mundane now, but back in 2004 the ban in Ireland was path-finding. It was Micheal Martin, now leader of Fianna Fail, who as Minister for Health was responsible for the ban. The research which underpinned the reporting in the old media doesn’t appear to be available online but some recent research from the group claims:

“Approximately 1 million people or 29% [of adults] currently smoke in the Republic of Ireland. 56% of women among the age group 18-26 from the lowest social class in Ireland smoke. One in five pregnant women still smokes in Ireland. Almost 10% of Irish school children currently smoke. 45% of Irish children are exposed to SHS inside households. One in seven Irish school children is also exposed to SHS while travelling in private vehicles, mainly cars.”

Are times a-changing of the Week

With the national debate dominated by them forthcoming abortion legislation, this was the week the Catholic bishops of Ireland issued a statement in response to the long-awaited publication by the Government of the heads of the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013. The statement drew support and provoked strong feelings, which illustrates the division in Irish society on any form of abortion.The full statement from the bishops doesn’t appear to be on their website but was published verbatim by the Irish Times here.

“The Catholic bishops of Ireland stress once again the importance of continuing to provide a health care service in Ireland which ensures complete respect for the sacredness of the life both of the mother and her unborn baby. The bishops express their appreciation of the work carried out day by day in this ethos by doctors, nurses, midwives and other health personnel. Through Cura, the Church’s crisis pregnancy agency, help is available to any woman facing a crisis pregnancy.

The Heads of the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013 published by the Government on Wednesday would, if approved, make the direct and intentional killing of unborn children lawful in Ireland. The Bill as outlined represents a dramatic and morally unacceptable change to Irish law and is unnecessary to ensure that women receive the life-saving treatment they need during pregnancy.

The Gospel of Life is at the heart of the message of Jesus; the deliberate decision to deprive an innocent human being of life is always morally wrong. We uphold the right to life as the foundation of every other human right. We encourage a deeper understanding of the inviolability of the right to life of both a mother and her unborn child, in all circumstances. Accordingly, at this crucial time, it is essential that all who share these beliefs make them clear to their legislators.

The Bill also appears to impose a duty on Catholic hospitals to provide abortions. This would be totally unacceptable and has serious implications for the existing legal and Constitutional arrangements that respect the legitimate autonomy and religious ethos of faith-based institutions. It would also pose serious difficulties for the conscientious beliefs of many citizens.

Abortion, in the sense of directly killing the unborn child, is never a remedy for suicidal ideation and therefore should never be cited as a justification for the direct killing of an innocent human being. It is a tragic moment for Irish society when we regard the deliberate destruction of a completely innocent person as an acceptable response to the threat of the preventable death of another person.

We invite all who cherish human life to support the Vigil for Life which is taking place in Knock tomorrow – see below. We encourage everyone who can attend the Vigil to do so or to join in prayer with us. Cherish both mother and baby! Choose life!”

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Dunne’s Walford sells for €14m, Gortanore for €5.05m

This week, an eagle-eyed pinster over at thepropertypin.com spotted an unusually large sale on the Property Price Register – see above. Walford on Shrewsbury Road in Dublin sold for €14m (exactly) on 29th March, 2013. The Dublin Estates blog has been following the Walford saga for some time, and reports the sale and has nice piccies as well.

The property had been on the market in late 2011 through Savills with an “Advised Minimum Value” of €15m and there was a closing date for bids in November 2011.

Walford is a crumbling, and not particularly grand, Edwardian detached home – pictured above – but its attractiveness in the past was derived from its 2 acres of attached land in the heart of Ballsbridge. It was purchased by Matsack Nominees Limited, an anonymous trust company in 2005 for €58m. There have been frequent reports in the old media – for example, here – that it was the Dunnes, Sean and Gayle who purchased it. The plans to build an ultra-exclusive estate never materialized, and with the collapse of the property sector, the land rapidly lost its value, indeed there will be many who will dispute its worth at €14m today and the PPR is noted for its volume of errors.

We don’t know the buyer yet. But they will be pleased to learn the new property tax will only apply to the house and 1 acre of amenity land, they will not pay a cent in property tax on the second acre. And until we identify the buyer, we can’t be even sure that the buyer will pay stamp duty or if the sale will ultimately involve the transfer of shares in a company with most of the €14m being paid off-shore. And if there is a change in beneficiary to a trust, then similar tax avoidance may be lawfully deployed to avoid stamp duty. Galling, isn’t it?

Separately, it is understood from reliable sources that the other great Celtic Tiger residential play, Gortanore, the 3-acre property in Foxrock with planning permission, has sold for €5.05m to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on behalf of its embassy. It was understood last October 2012 that it was under offer from the KSA. At time of writing Jones Lang LaSalle, one of the two joint selling agents, had not responded to a request for comment.

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NAMA reports on leak of information to Data Protection Commissioner

Just before 6pm yesterday, an email was received on here; it was sent on behalf of the Data Protection Commissioner and was in response to the complaint submitted from here on Wednesday this week. The complaint followed the revelation in a court affidavit that NAMA had apparently provided large amounts of confidential information on loans to third parties. When the matter was first reported on here, NAMA sought an undertaking not to publish the information it had apparently disclosed to third parties; the undertaking was sought under threat of an injunction, and the undertaking was readily provided though with the proviso that the information would be provided to the Data Protection Commissioner as part of a complaint.

The non-confidential email from the DPC yesterday evening expressed thanks for bringing the matter to its attention. It went on to say “However, I can confirm that this Office has received a report on the matter from NAMA. Please be assured that the Breach Notification Section of the Office is investigating the matter under the provisions of the Personal Data Security Breach Code of Practice.”

The email was responded to, asking for clarification and specifically if the DPC was suggesting that the complaint from here would not be addressed directly. It was pointed out to the DPC that it was the public which owned NAMA that was one of the major parties that might suffer from the NAMA information. A further message was sent asking if the DPC could confirm when NAMA made a report of the matter to the DPC and if the DPC can provide any information on its content.

It’s a Bank Holiday weekend so there’s not likely to be any update until Tuesday.

Funny how the old media went bat crazy last year when it emerged from a NAMA investigation that its employee Enda Farrell had emailed confidential information outside the organization; in this instance, there has not been a mig out of the old media.

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The Sean Dunne statement of financial affairs – analysis

They were filed in Connecticut late last night, and are available here – at 53 pages, might take a moment to download. The figures below are all in United States Dollars (USD) though Sean says in his statement that he used an exchange rate with the euro of USD 1.2798 and with sterling of USD 1.51. The value of real estate is, according to the statement, the same as was given to NAMA in December 2010 and has not been updated. Sean may sue other people, and he alerts us to that fact, “despite his reasonable efforts to identify all known assets, the Debtor may not have set forth all of his causes of action or potential causes of action against third parties as assets in his Schedules and Statements.”

Assets

Sean says that his USD 41m of “real property” against which there is a total of USD 745m of secured claims. What a sobering statement. The property includes a site at 72-80 North Wall Quay in Dublin currently worth less than USD 1m but with a secured claim of USD 282m, that’s a 99.7% decline from the secured amount. The main property comprising the USD 41m is Ouragh at 20a Shrewsbury Road valued at USD 10m and said to be his principal private residence – Certus is said to have a USD 15m secured claim on this property; land and sites at Charlesland in Wicklow of USD 8m, the Charles Retail and Leisure Centre of USD 5m and four apartments at Hollybrook on Brighton Road in Foxrock of USD 3m.

Sean’s non “real property” of USD 14m includes USD 960 of cash; most of the bank accounts are frozen, but interestingly, he has a measly USD 15 in People’s United Bank, the bank which the trustee has sought a subpoena to question. There’s a USD 1m pension pot at DCD Builders. He has listed a USD 12m claim against Kildare County Council as his main, non-real estate asset. This is a claim jointly with Sean Mulryan against Kildare CC and Sean describes it as a “50% Interest in Newbridge Inner Relief Road (counter claim against Kildare County Council Levies) constructed in lieu of levies for Whitewater Shopping Center”. Dublin solicitors, Beauchamps are said to owe Sean USD 53,572 in “overpaid legal fees”. There’s an insurance claim outstanding in respect of Sean’s home on Shrewsbury Road.

The vast majority of what would have been considered Sean’s assets, his developments, have now mostly been placed under the control of his creditors and are not included in the above, though they are itemized. Surprising not to see property in the UK or elsewhere, but perhaps it has all been disposed of as part of Sean’s efforts to repay his creditors.

Liabilities

The biggies are Ulster Bank owed USD 394m; NAMA owed USD 340m; Michael O’Flynn’s O’Flynn Construction owed USD 102m [UPDATE 4th May 2013] though it is understood that this loan was in fact provided by Irish Nationwide and has since been assigned to NAMA; Sean owes USD 50m to parties identified only as “A” and “B” resulting from judgments of the court in matters heard in camera, probably family law matters; Kildare County Council is owed USD 12m but there is a counterclaim against this;

Although not “biggies”, seems top-tier Dublin solicitors Arthur Cox are owed USD 1.5m; Bruce Shaw is owed a relatively small USD 12,798; the IDA is owed USD 140,778;  it is “unknown” how much is owed to KPMG – this is the crowd who audited AIB, Irish Nationwide and Permanent TSB during the boom, who oversaw the balls-up at the Lotto draw recently, who believe IBRC’s loans are worth about 60c in the euro and who, we learned last week, have not yet raised a single fee note for their work on IBRC.

Ballymore’s Sean Mulryan is claimed to be a co-debtor on some of Sean’s obligations.

Income and expenses

Sean declares USD 808,000 of income in 2011 and USD 204,000 in 2012 and USD 66,000 in 2013. This includes sales of land, rental income and the USD 30,000 sale of a car in February 2013 to Mahoney Motors in Dublin – there is a Denis Mahony Toyota, Lexus and Mercedes group in Dublin, and maybe Sean means this, but it is not quite clear as Sean spells it Mahoney with an “e” and the group trades as “Denis Mahony”

Elsewhere Sean says he is now employed by Mountbrook USA as a project manager with monthly gross income of USD 8,333.33. In addition he shows his estimated monthly gross rental receipts at USD 13,670 which equals a mortgage payment of USD 13,670 shown under his monthly expenses. His itemized monthly expenses mostly comprise that mortgage payment, rent of USD 3,600 and life assurance of USD 1,007. His total monthly income is shown as USD 22,003 and his expenses at USD 21,807

Law suits

Sean has to list current and recent law suits in his filing, and we learn that two defamation proceedings dating from 2006 against Associated Newspapers Limited, publishers of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, are pending. There is also a case by Irishman, Sean Doyle against the Dunnes in a New York court, that case is in arbitration.

Where Sean lives

Sean was required to list his place address of residence for the past three years, and lists four addresses, one in Switzerland, one in Dublin and two in Connecticut – above. Interesting that he indicates that his residence at 526 Indian Field Road was January 2011 through to March 2013, but Sean was only required to provide addresses UP TO his filing for bankruptcy on 29th March 2013. Recent indications are that the Dunnes have now vacated this property.

Oddities

Sean is required to provide “bookkeepers and accountants” kept records in the past two years and Sean merely lists two in a manner which doesn’t fully identify them “J Ryan Ireland” and “R Connolly Ireland” who are both described as providing services “periodically during the past two years”

Sean’s award-winning bankruptcy attorney, James Berman, says that he has already been paid USD 15,000 by Sean.

We cannot see much of the detail of who Sean co-owns some real estate property with, because the spreadsheet submitted to the court truncates descriptions. That will need be rectified.

Sean says his loans – just some of his loans from later on – from Bank of Scotland Ireland have been sold to a company called “Risali Limited” and if that is an Irish incorporated company, then it is the company incorporated in November 2012 whose directors are Wendy Merrigan and Rory Williams (43). According to the creditors listing included in the statement, he now owes USD 16.2m to Risali secured on property on Serpentine Avenue in Ballsbridge and a company called Breccia Limited.

The statement of financial affairs is electronically signed by Sean on 3^rd May 2013, and his signing is “under penalty of perjury” with penalties of fines up to USD 500,000 or imprisonment for up to five years, or both”. There is a creditors meeting scheduled for 8th May 2013, and we should learn soon afterwards if issues are raised with the bankruptcy, though it should be stressed that it is for the trustee to decide how the bankruptcy will proceed.

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