Goodman pulls sale of €110m Setanta Centre

Beef baron Larry Goodman has abandoned plans to sell the Setanta Centre in Dublin's city centre after advanced talks on a €110 million-plus deal fell through.

It is understood that a preferred overseas bidder for the 41-year-old office and retail complex on Nassau Street, selected two months ago, has not been in a position to complete a deal.

Mr Goodman may now move to refurbish and redevelop the site, across the road from Trinity College’s playing fields, according to industry sources. The businessman’s son Laurence jnr oversees his property assets.

Mr Goodman holds the property, where the retail space is mainly occupied by the Kilkenny Shop retailer of Irish craft and fashion, through a company called Parma Investments.

Mr Goodman, whose ABP group is one of the biggest meat processors in Europe, put the centre on the market this year after receiving an unsolicited approach for the property, in which he has had an on-an-off-interest for decades.

It followed London-based real estate investment manager Meyer Bergman’s purchase of nearby Nassau House in partnership with BCP International Property Fund for €90 million, from funds advised by Aviva Investors. They plan to redevelop the building. The duo have since spent millions of euro on further property along Nassau Street.

US sanctions

Mr Goodman bought the Setanta Centre in 2003 for a reported €85 million from Green Property, which itself had acquired the property from paper packaging entrepreneur

Michael Smurfit

and Scottish mining tycoon

Harry Dobson

.

Mr Dobson originally bought his 50 per cent stake in the early 1990s from Mr Goodman after the latter's Goodman Group beef empire went into examinership as US sanctions against Iraq during the Gulf Crisis hit its business there.

Bidders for the centre, in a process managed in recent months by Jones Lang LaSalle, were reported to have included Texas-based property group Hines, Irish developer Noel Smyth, an unnamed Middle Eastern suitor and Tishman Speyer, the US real estate company whose holdings include the Chrysler Building and Rockefeller Centre in New York.

Headquarters

Meanwhile, Mr Goodman is currently redeveloping the former

Bank of Ireland

headquarters on Baggot Street in Dublin at a cost of €100 million.

He acquired the complex, originally built in the 1960s and 1970s, in 2013 for more than €40 million – less than a quarter of the price paid for it in 2008.

The so-called Miesian Plaza is due to be completed early next year, with the entire 20,345sq m (219,000 sq ft) property reported to have been pre-let to the Department of Health and drugs company Shire.

The department is currently based at Hawkins House in Poolbeg Street, just off the city quays. Hawkins House is in a rundown condition and slated for redevelopment.

With the Baggot Street project near completion, real estate industry sources believe that Mr Goodman may now turn his sights on redeveloping the Setanta Centre and take further advantage of its prime location.