8 April 2015
Vultures leave their carrion
to resurrectionists
Ronan’s fortunes eclipse former adversary Kelleher’s. By Frank Connolly
Also in this section:
Wick-lowdown, 2015 10
Wicklow writs 12
A Morality Tale 13
Guardianship 16
Migrant entrepreneurship 18
Crystal Clear 20
General election in the North 22
NEWS
S
O Johnny Ronan is back on top of
the heap. According to the Sindo,
the “maverick” developer is about
to storm the most lucrative real estate
sites in Dublin and London, with the help
of US and Asian funds. The man with the
magic touch has paid back €400m to get
out of the clutches of NAMA with the
help of US private equity group, Colony
Capital, and international bank M&G.
So far so good for Johnny who will not
waste our time moaning about his treat-
ment by the ‘bad bank’, misguided as he
suggests it was in relation to the seizure
and sale of the Battersea power station
in London which he and Richard Barrett
saw as their “master plan” to survive the
property crash at home.
We are informed that whatever he
thinks of NAMA it “wouldn’t be fit for
print.” The newspaper (5th April) also
suggested that a report published in
a “national newspaper” last year had
almost scuppered Johnny’s plans when
it “made reference to political corrup-
tion and false accusations against Mr
Ronan of fraudulently stripping assets
from his previous business, Treasury
Holdings”.
Despite an apology the damage was
done until the Colony boys came riding
over the horizon to re-finance his NAMA
loans of €300m. It is unclear what Ronan
had to offer in order to attract the likes
of Colony, a real estate trust with global
investments of more than $60bn. Surely
he must have brought more to the table
than his undoubted charm and experi-
ence in the property game.
The 1991 founder of Colony Capital,
Thomas J Barrack is certainly no pusho-
ver and previously served in the Reagan
administration as Deputy Undersecre-
tary of the Department of the Interior. In
2010, French president Nicolas Sarkozy
awarded him France’s Chevalier de la
Légion d’honneur, no less.
Meanwhile, the former nemesis of the
Treasury pair, Garrett Kelleher has his
own story to tell about dealings with
former NAMA board member, John
Mulcahy, the real estate agent who
helped blow up the bubble before it burst
some seven years ago and then joined the
agency to help sort out the mess in the
banks as its head of asset management.
Kelleher has alleged that he was
promised by Mulcahy (who joined fast-
growing property-pension fund, IPUT
six months after leaving the agency
last year) that his €46m in personal
guarantees would not be called in if he
co-operated with the agency.
That conversation was in a pub in Sep-
tember 2009, just as the bad bank was
being set up and encouraged Kelleher,
he says, not to declare “quick and easy”
bankruptcy in the US. NAMA insists that
no such assurances were given then, or
later by different officials in 2010 after
the agency was set up. NAMA went on
to sell loans it acquired from Kelleher’s
aborted Chicago Squire project at below
market price, the developer claims,
which hampered his ability to repay the
personal guarantees and other debts
held by the agency.
Those who have followed the fortunes
of these brave masters of the universe
over the decades will, no doubt, see the
irony in these recent developments. Back
in the day, when Kelleher was build-
ing a hotel on Parnell Street it was none
other than Treasury Holdings that used
a piece of land on historic Moore Lane as
a “ransom strip” to block their rival.
It was alleged at that time in the late
1990s that Richard Barrett “had his
foot on” Kelleher’s head, if necessary,
to block his plans. Treasury went on to
threaten the Sunday Business Post for
many millions in damages (a multiple of
what the paper was worth) for reporting
a statement made at a hearing of An Bord
Pleanála to the effect that the company
was able to block any planning devel-
opment in Dublin due to its influence at
the higher levels of political authority.
It never proceeded with the writ against
the Post.
When it came to the crash, of course,
Ronan became the poster boy for the
hubris left in its wake and he found that
his political and banking contacts were
not what they used to be. Nonetheless, he
and the less visible Barrett who spends
a lot of time in the Far East these days,
have emerged from their long battle for
survival, albeit that Treasury Holdings
and the taxpayer were not so lucky.
Meanwhile, the various vulture funds
who invested in the depressed Irish
property market in recent years are
now apparently rushing to cash in and
move on, with healthy returns, perhaps
leaving the market once again to some
familiar if older-looking faces. •
The various
vulture
funds who
invested in
the depressed
Irish property
market in
recent years
are now
apparently
rushing to
cash in and
move on,
with healthy
returns,
perhaps
leaving the
market once
again to some
familiar if
older-looking
faces
“