It has taken the best part of a year to finalise, but the ink is finally dry on the rumoured £8 million deal for Northern Ireland's only five-star golf resort, and that sits well with the man you would least expect it to, Jim Treacy.
The Fermanagh-born businessman spent 10 years of his life – and he claims £10 million of his own money – developing the £30 million Lough Erne Resort, and then lost it virtually overnight when Bank of Scotland Ireland (BoSI) pulled the rug on him.
Treacy always had big plans – overly ambitions plans, some said at the time – for the development. He pitched the idea enthusiastically to BoSI, which, in turn, was accommodating in lending him more than £21 million to bring those dreams to life.
If it was not for those ambitions and his determination, Lough Erne would never have hosted the 39th G8 Summit in the summer of 2013.
If nothing else the G8 Summit shows Treacy succeeded in his ambitions to create a resort with “wow” factor in his “home county” that would “bring jobs” and attract “golfers from across the world” to Fermanagh.
In 2007, when he opened the five-star star hotel on the resort with much fanfare – and two years later the Nick Faldo designed golf course – he believed it would be a driving force in not just the local economy but for the tourism industry generally.
Daydream
He even recruited Rory McIlroy to be the resort’s touring professional at the time. Looking back now at the photographs for the first Lough Erne golf challenge, in the summer of 2009, where he is standing smiling and chatting with Padraigh Harrington and McIlroy, it must seem to Treacy little more than a daydream.
By 2011, BoSI had shattered not only Treacy’s ambitions for Lough Erne but almost his lifetime’s work.
Amid the banking crisis, its parent group, UK-based Lloyds Banking Group, decided to pull out of Ireland. Virtually overnight, BoSI called in loans on Lough Erne totalling £25 million. Because Treacy had used another business – his Supervalu store in Churchtown in Dublin – as security on the loans, it was also threatened.
In the end, BoSI appointed administrators to Lough Erne and also receivers to the Supervalu store.
Treacy has since rebuilt his business operations in the south. But at the time it was a brutal shock to a man who had banked with BoSI for 13 years. He tried to rally political and business support in the North against the bank’s actions but it failed to materialise into anything useful.
Treacy put up a brave fight against BoSI’s disposal plans, but it was ultimately in vain, which is why you would imagine the sale of Lough Erne to a group of American investors would be painful for him to witness. But it has been the exact opposite.
Vision
Although Treacy would desperately love to still own Lough Erne and be living out his business dream there, he was one of the people who helped secure the sale of the resort to the American group.
He was involved in showing the group of American investors around Lough Erne when they first came to investigate the proposition, and he explained to them in person what his vision had been when he first started on the project.
Treacy believes the Illinois-headquartered Vine Avenue Advisors, which is headed by Michael Saliba, and Tru Hotels and Resorts, which is a hotel investment and management company founded by American hoteliers Jeff Mahan and Mark Ward, represent the best possible option for Lough Erne's future.
“It is good to see the issues at Lough Erne resolved,” he says. “I want the resort to flourish, I invested in Fermanagh because I wanted to do something great for my home county. I believed in Fermanagh and I still do today.
“There are up to 150 jobs at Lough Erne and that is something I am very proud of. I was never going to abandon it, I want the very best for it and, although the perfect storm hit me and Bank of Scotland Ireland tried to absolutely destroy me, I knew I had to keep going – and I am still.”
Treacy hopes Lough Erne’s new owners will make good on their promises to invest in the resort and secure a brighter future for it than has been the outlook for the past couple of years.
In 2017, Lough Erne is due to host the Irish Open. Treacy intends to be there.