Ireland

Former Irish tycoons Bernard McNamara and Sean Fitzgerald are both facing bankruptcy after private investors mounted a fresh attempt to force McNamara into insolvency, while Fitzgerald’s bid to avoid bankruptcy seems set to fail, IrishCentral reported. McNamara, the Clare-born builder turned property developer, is being pursued by a group of investors seeking up to 40 properties. McNamara, whom the Sunday Times dubbed ‘the man who lost everything’, is being pursued by creditors on two separate fronts, according to Court and media reports.

A boutique hotel backed by the businessmen Paddy Kelly and Niall McFadden has gone into receivership, The Sunday Business Post reported. Ulster Bank has taken possession of Lisloughrey Lodge, a country house hotel next to Ashford Castle in Cong, Co Mayo. The bank has a €10 million exposure to the hotel. Kieran Wallace, head of insolvency with KPMG accountants, has been installed as receiver over the property. A meeting of creditors will take place later this month to appoint a liquidator.

Mortgage arrears at Irish banks rose 13 per cent in the first three months of the year, the Financial Regulator said today. At the end of March, 32,321 residential mortgages with a value of €6.1 billion were more than 90 days behind in payments, The Irish Times reported. This equates to more than 4 per cent of the total of 791,000 property loans in the State, which are worth a total of €118 billion. Some 2.8 per cent of mortgages, or €4.1 billion, were more than 180 days behind.

The 87-bed Killeshin Hotel in Portlaoise, which is backed by Bernard McNamara, has been placed into receivership, The Irish Times reported. Gearóid Costello, a Limerick-based partner with Grant Thornton, has been appointed as receiver to the business by Anglo Irish Bank, which is believed to be owed about €20 million. It is understood that Pembroke Hospitality has been appointed to manage the four-star hotel, which will remain open and will trade as a going concern.

European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet “gulped a bit” when he was told by the former chief executive of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), Dr Michael Somers, that the State might need up to €60 billion to buy toxic loans from the Irish banks, The Irish Times reported. Speaking on RTÉ’s Marian Finucane Show yesterday, Dr Somers said he travelled to meet Mr Trichet because there was nowhere “except the ECB” that funding for the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) could come from. Dr Somers said he did “a lot of hard swallowing” about Nama.

AIB said today the Government's stake in the bank would rise to more than 18 per cent as it increased the holding instead of paying the State a dividend, The Irish Times reported. The National Pension Reserve Fund Commission was due to be paid a dividend today on €3.5 billion preference shares, amounting to €280 million. However, the European Commission had requested the bank would not make discretionary coupon or dividend payments on certain securities, as discussions on a restructuring plan are ongoing.

Fitch Ratings said today that Greek and Irish banks’ reliance on European Central Bank loans is out of proportion to the size of their assets, Finfacts reported. Greek banks accounted for 6.6% of the €749bn the ECB lent to financial companies by the end of 2009, though only held 1.6% of the Eurozone's banking assets, Fitch analysts wrote in a report. Irish banks took 12% of ECB funding, compared to a 5.24% share of the region’s bank assets.

The new management team at State-owned Anglo Irish Bank is reworking its proposed rescue plan for beleaguered Quinn Insurance to join forces with a foreign trade buyer to run the insurer and temporarily share ownership, The Irish Times reported. Anglo Irish is revising its proposals in an attempt to allay the Financial Regulator’s concerns about its ability to manage the firm by handing over control of the company to a large insurance partner.

National Irish Bank (NIB) has set aside €146 million for loan impairment charges related to losses on commercial property transactions, The Irish Times reported. The bank, which is outside the Government's guarantee scheme, said impairment charges related to bad loans were down €52 million on last year. The Danish-owned lender today reported losses of €133 million for the first three months of the year, saying economic conditions remained “very difficult”. The bank’s total loan book was €10.2 billion, down 5 per cent on last year.

New statistics compiled by InsolvencyJournal.ie reveal that insolvencies in the first four months of 2010, have increased by 27 per cent compared to the same period last year, Finfacts reported. A total of 532 company failures were recorded so far this year, compared to 419 between January and April 2009. 125 companies went bust in April, down 15 per cent from the March total of 147 insolvencies. Dublin continues to account for the majority of failures with 52 insolvencies - - 42 per cent of all insolvencies.