Property firm of FitzPatrick, O'Brien and Quinn €5m in red in May 2008

A PROPERTY company whose backers include former Anglo Irish Bank chief Seán FitzPatrick, media owner Denis O’Brien and ESB chairman Lochlann Quinn, along with a who’s who of Irish business, ended last year in €5 million in the red.

In 2005, Mr Fitzpatrick, Mr O’Brien and Mr Quinn, along with developer Pat Doherty, the then Dublin Docklands Development chairman, former Anglo director Lar Bradshaw and Smurfit chief executive Gary McGann were named as the backers of Tysan Investments, which bought two office blocks in Sandyford, Co Dublin, from Green Property.

Tysan bought a company called Balcuik, owner of blocks A and B, in 2005. US software giant Microsoft became one of its tenants. Part of the multinational’s Irish-based operations are housed in one of the Atrium blocks.

The company’s accounts for the 12 months ended May 30th, 2008, the most recent period for which it has lodged returns, show it ended the year with net liabilities of €5.7 million. Tysan had assets of €100.2 million, but owed its banks €105.9 million, leaving it more than €5 million in the red.

The company’s accounts say its assets consist largely of a debt owed to it by a subsidiary. Tysan’s direct subsidiary is Balcuik, which in turn owns Atrium Investments.

Balcuik’s accounts show that it was the debtor. Those figures also state that the company took a €21 million hit on the value of its properties earlier this year. They show that property company CB Richard Ellis valued the properties last February at €116 million; they were previously valued at €137 million. The accounts state that the historical cost of the investment properties was €97 million.

The identities of the businessmen behind the 2005 deal emerged after it was notified to the Competition Authority. In May of that year, authority issued a notice giving the deal the green light. This notice also identified its various backers.

Mr FitzPatrick was chairman of Anglo Irish Bank at the time. The bank holds a floating charge over Balcuik’s properties. He resigned as chairman after it emerged that the bank had loaned him up to €120 million without informing shareholders.

One of the backers of Tysan was former Ardagh chief executive Paul Coulson, who engineered the sale of the Dublin Glass Bottle site to a consortium that included the city’s docklands authority and developer Bernard McNamara for €412 million in 2006.

Anglo Irish Bank funded the deal, which is now the subject of a High Court battle. Mr FitzPatrick was on the docklands board at the time, while Mr Bradshaw was a director of the bank. He no longer sits on either board.

Mr Quinn is a former chairman of AIB and now chairs the ESB.

Mr O’Brien is a major shareholder in Independent News and Media and owns national radio stations Today FM and Newstalk.

John Kerry Keane, who sold the Kilkenny People newspaper titles to Johnson Press, was another backer, as was telecoms tycoon Seán Melly and Pat Gunne of the Gunne property group.