The extent to which senior officers in AIB were themselves caught up in the Irish property bubble is becoming more apparent as the months pass, writes COLM KEENA, Public Affairs Correspondent
PUBLIC FILINGS have shown that two senior executives of AIB, Tommy Hopkins and John Hughes, were long-term property market players who continued to invest right through the height of the boom.
An internal bank inquiry into the two men’s involvement in the property scene is ongoing.
An examination of documents at the Registry of Deeds in Dublin shows the extent to which Hughes, Hopkins and former Anglo executive Tom Browne invested in Irish property, and also how their paths crossed repeatedly since the mid- to late 1990s.
JOHN HUGHES
John Hughes is the head of business banking with AIB Eyre Square, Galway, and was at one time one of the highest paid, if not the highest paid, AIB executive in Ireland.
In the mid-1990s he purchased 50 to 60 acres of land near Blarney, Co Cork, with businessmen Michael O’Regan and Michael Melville, and they secured planning permission for a business park. A charge against the land was registered with Anglo Irish Bank.
Melville is a director and shareholder of Oran Pre-Cast Ltd, of Oranmore, Co Galway, which banks with AIB Eyre Square.
O’Regan is a director of a number of companies, some of whom also bank with AIB Eyre Square.
The partners subsequently teamed up with John Bowen and his Bowen Group, which bought into the project and became its main contractor.
The park was officially opened by the then taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, in November 2001. Bowen subsequently bought out his partners, and about a third of the park has been developed.
Bowen told The Irish Timesthat he knew at the time that Hughes was with AIB, but thought little of it. The project did not bank with AIB, and he did not know of any other property activities involving Hughes.
“It is still a good location and it was far-seeing to see its potential way back then,” he said.
TOMMY HOPKINS
Hopkins is a director of AIB Commercial Services at AIB Bankcentre, Ballsbridge. He has been involved with Marchbury Properties Ltd since the late 1990s, when it was incorporated. His business partner is Thomas Durcan, a builder whose company, Kingbrook Builders Ltd, Terenure, banks with AIB Bankcentre.
Marchbury took out a mortgage with First Active in 2003, involving land at Balbriggan, Co Dublin. Hopkins is the owner of land in Rathfarnham, Donabate and Balrothery in Co Dublin and in Kells, Co Meath. Marchbury built 222 houses in Balbriggan in 2007.
Durcan, Hopkins and Hughes are shareholders of Banagher Investments Ltd, a company established in 1999 and which up to recently had its registered address at Hopkins’s home. The company took out a mortgage with Anglo Irish Bank in 2000 against property in Blackhall Place, Hendrick Street and Oxmanstown Lane, in Stoneybatter, Dublin, which was the subject of a residential development.
In September 2009 solicitor Hugh O’Neill, for Anglo Irish Bank, registered a mortgage taken out by Hopkins in November 2006, against property in the development, being apartments 1, 2, 5, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 25, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 38, 42, 43, 44, and 45, Gravel Walk Church Apartments, at Henrick Street, Blackhall Place, and Oxmanstown Road.
In June 2004, Hopkins and Durcan took out a “general mortgage” with Bank of Scotland (Ireland) that cited 24 Northumberland Road, Dublin, and 47 Rathgar Road, Rathgar, Dublin, and also all other land freehold and leasehold held by the men. The mortgage was registered with the Registry of Deeds in January 2006.
TOM BROWNE
Tom Browne is a former head of Irish lending at Anglo Irish Bank.
A receiver has been appointed by the bank to properties he owns in the UK as part of its robust treatment of former directors who have substantial loans.
For reasons that are not clear, the receiver, KPMG, has not been appointed to his Irish property interests.
Browne and Hughes own very substantial commercial property in Galway city.
Registry of Deeds files show that in February 2006 Hughes and Browne took out a “general mortgage” with the EBS Building Society.
The mortgage concerned all property held by the men but listed the substantial retail, office and residential development on Fairgreen Road, Galway, known as The Exchange Building and Geata na Cathrach.
The development was purchased from Castlehope Developments Ltd, a company owned by Bernard McNamara and Jerry O’Reilly. The conveyance occurred on August 31st, 2005.
The Office of Public Works has confirmed that it pays an annual rent of €1.2 million for office space rented from Hughes and Browne in the building.
Browne and Hughes rent further office space at the Dockgate development in Galway to the OPW.
Documents at the Registry of Deeds show Hughes and Browne registered a mortgage with the Bank of Ireland in September 2007 against the Dockgate development. Browne gave his address as “care of Anglo Irish Bank, 18-21 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin”.
The property involves five floors of offices and accompanying car park spaces. The registry files indicate the mortgage remains outstanding.
Hughes and Browne bought land at Westport in 2001 and registered a charge with the EBS. Hughes and Hopkins bought property at a business park at Monksland, Athlone, Co Roscommon, in 2006.
Hughes and Donal Dooley, a shareholder in Oran Pre-Cast, invested in the Moneenbradagh Industrial Estate, in Moneen, Co Mayo, in 2002.
Hughes and Hopkins have an interest in property at the Liosbaun Business Park, Galway. Hughes and Browne have a premises at Castlegar, Galway, bought from Dooley in October 2000.
Hughes, along with Dooley, Paul Muskealla, John Colleran, Gerry Dervin and John Crean, took out a mortgage on a site at nearby Lough Atalia Road, Galway, with Bank of Ireland, Westport, Co Mayo, in July 2006.
Documents in the Registry of Deeds indicate that the mortgage remains outstanding.
Dooley and Hughes’s wife, Margaret, are shareholders and directors of Donmar Construction, a company with an address “care of” Oran Pre-Cast Ltd in Oranmore, Co Galway.
Donmar built eight apartments in Oughterard, Co Galway, four of which were bought by John Hughes.
ANGLO PLANS MOVE AGAINST EX-EXECUTIVE: BANK MAY TAKE POSSESSION OF IRISH PROPERTIES
ANGLO IRISH Bank is understood to be planning to take possession of Irish properties owned by the bank’s former head of Irish lending, Tom Browne.
The bank has already appointed Kieran Wallace of KPMG as receiver over a number of commercial properties in Britain owned by Browne as it attempts to recover loans of about €14 million.
It has seized possession of an office building in Bishopsgate, London, and apartments in Yorkshire.
Browne’s Irish properties are also likely to come under the control of the receiver.
Browne wrote to associates last month to inform them in advance that there may be details of a legal action with Anglo in the media in the near future.
The former Anglo executive retired from the bank in September 2007 and now runs Dublin wealth management firm LeBruin Private.
Browne had been a contender to succeed Seán FitzPatrick as Anglo chief executive in 2005, but the job went to David Drumm.
When he left the bank, Browne borrowed money from Anglo to exercise share options and purchase Anglo shares.
He subsequently completed a number of other deals partially financed by Anglo on normal commercial terms. These loans from the bank were secured on property and shares in Anglo.
Browne said in his letter that the nationalisation of Anglo rendered the value of his shares worthless and destroyed a substantial part of the value of the underlying security for the loans.
He added that the situation “appeared destined to end up in the courts”, where he said he would defend his position and deal with the matter in the months ahead.
- SIMON CARSWELL
