Former property dealmaker Derek Quinlan, one of the most swashbuckling players of the boom-time Irish economy, has said that he doesn't see himself ever returning to live in Ireland.
In an interview with US magazine Vanity Fair about the long-running shareholder battle for the five-star London hotels Claridge's, the Connaught and the Berkeley, Mr Quinlan said: "I don't see myself living there again."
The former wealth manager, who is working to reduce his vast debts after the Irish property crash and banking crisis, moved to Switzerland for personal and tax reasons in 2009 and later to London.
Speaking publicly in a rare exchange with the media, the former tax inspector who assembled the Irish investors who bought the €1 billion hotel group in 2004 recalled meeting “plutocrats and oligarchs,” as Vanity Fair journalist Dana Vachon described them in the August edition, after he became the owner of world-famous Claridges.
The now heavily indebted businessman recounted stories of meeting the former Qatari foreign minister Sheikh Hamad at his desert palace and former Russian tycoon Sergei Pugachev, who was then known as "Kremlin's Banker," in Moscow where he dined in a grand room lined with bodyguards and portraits of the Romanovs.
Mr Quinlan recalls with some pride being told by Mr Pugachev: “You can have whatever wine you want.”
His then new-found status among the rich and influential contrasts starkly with his poor upbringing in Ireland. According to the Vanity Fair article, Mr Quinlan cried during the interview at a private club in Mayfair when he remembered his cash-strapped days growing up.
“To recall his boyhood in 1950s Dublin, ‘my father and mum with virtually no money,’ sends him reaching for a pale blue Hermes handkerchief, weeping shame of origins,” writes Mr Vachon.
The lengthy magazine feature details the falling out between the two rival shareholders in the hotels, Mr Quinlan - who is backed by billionaire twins, David and Frederick Barclay, owners of the Telegraph Media Group - and Belfast-born businessman Paddy McKillen, who is backed by the multi-billion dollar Californian hedge fund Colony Capital run by businessman Tom Barrack.
Mr McKillen speaks candidly with the magazine about his opinions of Mr Quinlan and the Barclays. He tells the magazine that Mr Quinlan was “only interested in red wine and parties.”
Mr Quinlan’s response was “Paddy’s view on me says more about Paddy than me.”
Mr McKillen lost a legal action against the Barclays in London in 2012 leaving them in control of more than 60 per cent of the hotels, including Mr Quinlan’s share, against his share of about a third.
Mr McKillen recalled in an interview Mr Quinlan bringing along to a board meeting of the hotels one of the Barclay brothers’ executives who told the meeting that the twins now controlled the hotels.
He described this as a “Judas moment.”
“Not many times in your life do you just feel your partner sitting beside you has just thrown you under the bus,” said the businessman.
Mr McKillen told Vanity Fair that he is determined to continue fighting the brothers for the hotels. “This has now become personal,” he said. “I’ve stood up to them. No one has ever stood up to them.”
He predicts that Mr Quinlan will eventually go bankrupt, triggering the sale of his hotel shares to him under the shareholder agreement and giving him control of these trophy assets.
Mr Quinlan countered, saying that Mr McKillen has also used his shares as security against his extensive borrowings.
“Paddy’s situation is the same as mine,” he told the magazine. “All his shares are pledged.”
Mr Barrack, Vanity Fair says, appeared to suggest that a compromise will eventually be struck between the rival businessmen.
“At the end of the day this is just business, and the right business decision will bubble to the top of a foggy cauldron,” he said.
