Developers claim office block still worth €57.3m

PROPERTY DEVELOPERS Bernard McNamara and Jerry O’Reilly maintain that a Dublin office block which has been empty for a year is still worth the €57.3 million it cost to build.

The office block, at Barrow Street/Grand Canal Exchange is the main asset of a company called Corehill Ltd.

The accounts for 2009 and 2008 for Corehill Ltd both show the building as having a value of €57.3 million. This represents the cost of building the property. An alternative would be to use the property’s estimated net realisable value. The accounts state the value used is the lower value of the two alternatives.

On Wednesday, Mr McNamara said the values of some of his commercial properties had been reduced by up to 40 per cent.

The accounts, for the year to the end of March 2009, say Corehill has paid 74 per cent of the €316,817 it owed creditors outside the group at year’s end, since the end of March.

In their report accompanying the accounts and dated January 8th last, the directors say that market conditions have had “severe consequences” for their ability to verify the appropriateness of the carrying value of the work in progress.

The accounts say the company’s office block, at Barrow Street/ Grand Canal Exchange, is finished “with a prospective rent roll of €2.3 million”.

The 2008 accounts say the building has a “prospective rent roll of €2.6 million.”

Corehill is a subsidiary of a company called Ashdew and the accounts state the company has given a charge over its assets to cover Ashdew’s bank borrowings to the extent of €84.7 million. In the previous year’s accounts this figure was €97.1 million.

Corehill was owed €68 million by Ashdew at the end of March 2009. Corehill has two outstanding mortgages from AIB, according to filings in the Companies Registration Office, as has Ashdew.

Belltrap, the immediate parent of Corehill, has a number of charges registered with Ulster Bank. It is the owner of property at Bishop’s Square, Redmond’s Hill, Dublin 2, where the OPW had three leases that pay an annual rent of €4.14 million.

There have been no accounts filed recently for Belltrap or Ashdew.

The Belltrap accounts for the year to November 2007 say a dividend of €300,000 each was paid to Mr McNamara and Mr O’Reilly after year end and that the dividend paid out in 2006 was €9.3 million.