Canford Healthcare sold Serial entrepreneur Brian Cooney has sold his Canford Healthcare business to the €20 billion-valued US property group Ventas in a €75million deal, according to the ‘Sunday Independent’. Under a complex agreement, the Tipperary man will continue to run the high-end nursing home operation and will have an ambitious acquisition plan also financed by Ventas.

Cooney raised close to €20 million from Irish investors assembled by NCB (now Investec) to create the Canford Healthcare buyout vehicle in 2007. Backers included former SIAC boss Finn Leyden, who also joined the board of Canford Healthcare.

Package up 66%

The paper also reports that Ulster Bank chief executive Jim Brown (inset) saw his overall pay package jump by 66 per cent last year as the bank returned to profit for the first time since the financial crisis. Brown’s remuneration, which included salary, pension and other benefits, touched €1.63million, up from €979,000 a year earlier. He is now by far the highest-paid chief executive of a high street bank in Ireland, the paper claims

McKillen action

Property investor Paddy McKillen is to seek damages of €250 million from Nama for allegedly leaking details of his finances to the Barclay brothers, the ‘Sunday Times’ reports. Mr McKillen will continue with his action even though he has settled his dispute with the Barclays over the ownership of the Maybourne Hotel group. Qatar-backed Constellation Hotels Group bought out the Barclays in a deal that valued the group at €1.8 billion, according to a source quoted by the paper.

Commercial lending

Blanchardstown shopping centre in west Dublin will be valued at close to €1 billion following a refinancing, the ‘Sunday Times’ also reports. The shopping centre, owned by Green Property, will be refinanced by Morgan Stanley and will “signal the emergence of the US bank as a serious force in commercial lending in Ireland”, the paper reported.