MUSGRAVE’S €200 million purchase of rival grocer Superquinn attracted a lot of attention last year.

The deal was agreed after AIB, Bank of Ireland and National Irish Bank placed Superquinn in receivership on foot of a €275 million debt secured against its properties.

The debt dated to the chain’s purchase, in early 2005, by Select Retail Holdings for €450 million.

The deal included 12 freehold properties that were part of the Superquinn chain’s assets. Figures recently filed in the Companies’ Registration Office give a flavour of what Musgrave paid for these.

The accounts for Ballinteer SRH Ltd show that it sold its “sole” investment property to Musgrave for €15.7 million.

Similarly, the figures for Blackrock SRH Ltd show that it sold its “sole” investment property for €34.7 million.

Sundrive SRH Ltd sold its property for €11 million and Knocklyon SRH sold up for €17 million.

All in all, Musgrave paid just over €78 million for the four properties, which were the chief assets owned by those companies.

The same accounts show that the four companies owed their banks a total of €101.8 million, money that was secured against the properties.

This may be a bit of a back-of-the-envelope calculation but, assuming that the secured debts date back to Select’s purchase of Superquinn in January 2005, the banks ended up with a 22 per cent haircut on those specific properties.

Oddly enough, this discount almost tallies with the difference between the group’s bank debt of €275 million, and the price paid – €200 million – as they were reported at the time.

Strictly speaking, that is a difference of 27 per cent, but given that both reported figures are round, we can take it that they were not precise.

Given what’s happened in the property market generally, and particularly in retail and commercial, a 22 or 27 per cent discount was not a bad deal at all from the banks’ point of view.