Ballymore's British arm €1bn in deficit

The British subsidiary of Nama-backed developer Ballymore Properties was €1 billion in the red at the end of March, the latest figures show.

Ballymore Properties Holdings Ltd, the holding company for the Seán Mulryan-controlled group’s British activities, had a deficit of £811 million sterling (€1 billion) between its assets and liabilities on March 31st, the end of its last financial year, according to accounts filed at the UK Companies Office.

The group had debts of more than £1 billion and stock amounting to £437 million.

Much of the debt relating to group’s British operations was transferred to the State’s asset management agency, Nama, in 2010.

The overall Ballymore group agreed a business plan with Nama in 2011 and the accounts for the British holding company state that performance targets agreed with the agency were being met.

The company says that when the directors – Mr Mulryan, John Mulryan, Brian Fagan and David Pearson – signed off on the accounts last October they were confident it had enough cash to meet its liabilities for at least 12 months from that date.

Ballymore Properties Holdings lost £376 million in the year to March 31st, largely due to a £282.4 million writedown in the value of its stock. The biggest element of this was a reduction in its estimate of the value of its development properties to £91 million from £319 million.

A subsidiary signalled that it was considering selling part of the London Arena site in the east end of the British capital to help clear some of its debts.

The most recent accounts for the subsidiary, Ballymore London Arena, show it owed Royal Bank of Scotland £78 million on March 31st, which was due for repayment in December.

The group has completed the first phase of the site’s development and is marketing and selling unsold properties there in order to repay further debt.

Two years ago, Ballymore London Arena gave a 27.5 per cent stake to a group of bondholders in settlement of part of their debt. The Irish group bought the London site in 2002 for £80 million.