THE DEBT problems of embattled developer Liam Carroll have spread to a second of his three development groups as Ulster Bank has moved to protect loans to the Orthanc Group, which is behind his projects in Tallaght.
The bank, owned by part-nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland in the UK, has appointed accountant Paul McCann of Grant Thornton as receiver to Keenbury Properties, an unlimited company in Mr Carroll’s Orthanc Group.
The appointment marks the first receivership of a company within the group which, with the Zoe and Dunloe development groups, comprise Mr Carroll’s overall property empire.
The ownership of the three groups is held by the Showlay Group, which sits above the three development groups in Mr Carroll’s complex corporate structure.
The shareholders of Showlay are Mr Carroll and his wife Roisin.
Among the properties that Mr McCann has seized for Ulster Bank are apartments and commercial units where the tenants are Captain America’s restaurant and Marks Spencer in Tallaght.
A spokeswoman for Ulster Bank had no comment to make.
Ulster Bank and Allied Irish Banks (AIB) are the two main lenders on Mr Carroll’s investment and development projects in Tallaght, which include the Tallaght Cross and Glashaus hotels.
Mr Carroll closed the hotels last January within a year of their opening, with the loss of 72 jobs. They later reopened, offering rooms on long-term rentals.
Keenbury received planning permission in 2008 to change the use of about 20,000sq ft within Mr Carroll’s Tallaght Cross development to hotel, apartment, bar and restaurant use.
The directors of Keenbury Properties are Mr Carroll, David Torpey, who is managing director of his companies, and John Pope, the developer’s finance director.
The heavy indebtedness of Mr Carroll’s Zoe Group reached a critical point for the developer last July when Dutch-owned ACC Bank sought the immediate repayment of €136 million in loans.
After two unsuccessful attempts at both the High Court and the Supreme Court to secure court protection from his debts with the appointment of an examiner, the Zoe Group folded last October.
The two main financing companies at the peak of the 51-company group were liquidated, while the banks appointed receivers to development companies across the group, which held substantial landbanks in the Dublin docklands.
The lenders to the group appointed the receivers to protect the security on the loans. The receivers are managing Zoe’s investment properties and collecting rents to service the loans.
The bulk of the debts owing by Mr Carroll’s development groups are expected to be among the first tranche of loans moved into the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) in the new year.
The Zoe Group, which covered most of Mr Carroll’s property interests in Dublin city centre, owed its banks a total of €1.3 billion.
AIB and Bank of Scotland (Ireland) were the group’s largest lenders.
The two banks are also the main lenders to Mr Carroll’s Dunloe Group, which is behind the development of the Cherrywood business park in south Co Dublin.
No insolvency actions have yet been taken against any Dunloe companies.
The overall debts of Mr Carroll’s three property groups are estimated to be in the region of €2.8 billion, with the Zoe and Orthanc group accounting for a large share of the borrowings.
Documents filed in court during the Zoe Group’s epic battle for protection show that Vantive Holdings and Morston Investments, the two companies at the apex of the group, had inter-connected debts with firms in the Orthanc Group.
Vantive Holdings was owed €6.2 million by Orthanc Group debtors, which the company estimated would not be repaid.
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