Nama moves to sell €778m Barrett loan portfolio

The National Asset Management Agency has appointed estate agent Cushman & Wakefield to sell a €778 million loan portfolio secured on property formerly owned by Galway developer Gerry Barrett.

Mr Barrett, a former maths teacher turned developer, is one of the largest remaining clients of Nama.

Property Week, the London-based property news specialist, said his Nama portfolio was secured against 10 assets including the G Hotel in Galway and the D Hotel in Drogheda. Nama declined to comment when contacted.

The G Hotel was designed by milliner Philip Treacy. It is controlled by a company called Niche Hotels which is an unlimited company. Its accounts show however that it made a loss in 2012 and is reliant on Nama for continued support. The D Hotel is a boutique hotel in Drogheda.

Anglo Irish Bank

Mr Barrett’s main company is called Edward Holdings. He built up his property empire from the 1980s and eventually was one of the largest clients of Anglo Irish Bank. He was one of Nama’s famous top 10 when his loans were transferred over to it from his various Irish banks.

Valuations for his Irish property assets were badly hit by the crash. The four-star Meyrick hotel in Galway city was valued at €70 million in 2007, but accounts show this was reduced to €7.8 million in 2011.

Mr Barrett has already sold off various assets. In May 2013 Dublin-based investment company Signature Capital was said to have closed a €27 million deal to acquire Edward Square shopping centre in Galway from Nama.

Ashford Castle

Mr Barrett has also sold Ashford Castle, which includes a golf course. He bought the castle for €50 million during the boom but sold it last year for €20 million to Red Carnation Hotels. Most of the funds to buy this hotel were provided by

Bank of Scotland

(Ireland).

In June, Tom Barrett of Savills was appointed to sell some of Mr Barrett's smaller hotels: the Metropole Hotel, Cork, the Kilkenny Ormonde Hotel and the Malton, Killarney.

Nama has accelerated sales of its loan book since the start of the year. It is currently preparing to sell up to €1.5 billion of loans connected to a trio of developers Paddy Kelly, John Flynn and Alanis, a property investment company controlled by the McCormack family.

The sale is reported to have been triggered by an approach from Lone Star, the US investment fund, which has been highly active in Ireland.