‘We didn’t expect the attack on us,’ says developer O’Flynn

Michael O'Flynn was in conciliatory form when he emerged from the High Court about 2.30pm yesterday.

He was pleased he had won his case hands down against a subsidiary of the Blackstone Group, an American investment giant with assets under management of $279 billion.

In a 74-page judgment Ms Justice Mary Irvine ruled in his favour, and was frequently critical of his opponent Blackstone subsidiary Carbon Finance.

O’Flynn is back in charge of his businesses following yesterday, but a longer war stretches in front of him.

On December 31st, O’Flynn companies must repay €235 million to Blackstone.

Blackstone claims there is “no prospect” of this payment being made “unless there is a significant asset disposal outside of the ordinary course of business between now and December 2014”.

O’Flynn believes otherwise. He will have to sell assets to ensure he meets this payment, but he has options.

Overseas assets such as a €200 million retail and office development in Edinburgh could be sold, as could as other assets in Germany and Spain.

Blackstone disagrees with this strategy. It wants to take control of what it bought for €1.1 billion. Blackstone maintains O’Flynn’s business is “balance sheet insolvent” and it continues to argue this is the case after yesterday. It wants control of his business in return for writing down secured debt and injecting new cash into it.

It has no place for O’Flynn, who started it all in 1978.

The developer however is a fighter. The day before yesterday’s judgement he defused a key Blackstone rocket which threatened to destroy him.

He wrote to the investment fund telling it he had the “funds available” to “immediately repay” his personal borrowings of €24.9 million. His challenge now is to salvage at least some of what remains of his corporate empire. He will need to deal with Blackstone to do this.

Eleventh hour

O’Flynn’s comments appeared weighted to bring the fund back to the table, even at the 11th hour. “I am well used to working with banks and all sorts of organisations. I will of course...I am conscious of Blackstone and their position,” Mr O’Flynn told a crowd of reporters outside the High Court. “Obviously there is a further hearing to be heard in early October but I am confident that we can hopefully move on together. That is what people have to do.”

“We didn’t expect the attack on us. It came out of the blue. We have defended it. The court has upheld our situation. Obviously it is back to business and that includes doing business with our main lender [Carbon], of course it does.”

Approaches

O’Flynn is understood to have received approaches this week from investors interested in helping him refinance some of his business away from Blackstone. He has previously offered €240 million to Blackstone to buy back some of his assets. Other deals will likely be tabled in the coming weeks and months.

Blackstone’s subsidiary issued a more clinical statement than the Corkman. It said it “continues to believe that all steps taken in the current proceedings were necessary and appropriate in the circumstances.” It “looks forward” to Mr O’Flynn paying off his personal loans immediately.

Blackstone said it planned to “safeguard its position as a significant creditor of the O’Flynn Group and to do everything to protect the assets of the group and its creditors.”

Having built up his business over 36 years and survived four years inside Nama, O’Flynn remains under pressure. He is prepared to break up his empire in order to save some of it. All options are on the table. Back in the corporate saddle, his real race is now on.