IRISH NATIONWIDE Building Society (INBS) is part of a profit-sharing property venture in England that involves the Bahamas-based billionaire Joe Lewis, according to filings in the London Companies Office.
One of the key parties in the multimillion-pound project has since gone into administration and the loan has been transferred to the National Asset Management Agency.
The 2009 accounts for London-based Number One Estates Ltd state that at the end of the year its liabilities exceeded its assets by £10.7 million but it continued to have the support of its “principle creditor”, Irish Nationwide. The accounts are dated May 2010.
The company’s assets were £15 million (€17.8 million) and it suffered a pretax loss of £4.5 million.
The accounts say the company has a profit-sharing agreement with Galliard Homes Ltd and Irish Nationwide whereby the latter two would get 62.5 per cent of any profits from the sale of the company’s sole property asset.
However the two will carry 50 per cent of any loss that would arise, the accounts state. The property is understood to be a 5.7 hectare hospital grounds near the centre of Chelmsford, Essex. The company has plans to built 215 apartments, 77 houses and some commercial buildings on the site.
The agreement was made in 2007, according to the accounts. At the time Michael Fingleton was the dominant force in Irish Nationwide, which is now insolvent and dependent on State support.
It is understood Mr Fingleton authorised 100 per cent finance to a number of UK property projects in return for a share for the society in any profits.
Filings in London show Irish Nationwide took out a charge against Number One’s property in July 2006. The company’s 2008 accounts say it entered into an agreement to buy the Chelmsford site during 2006, paying £2 million up front and agreeing to pay £11 million on December 31st, 2009, if vacant possession was achieved.
The 2009 accounts say the ultimate controlling party of Number One Estates up to July 2009 was billionaire Joe Lewis, who is based in the Bahamas. Two intermediate holding companies, Rock One Ltd and Rock Investment Holdings Ltd, were owned by Rapello Ltd, a company controlled by Mr Lewis, up to July 2009.
However the Rock companies went into administration in May 2009 and there is concern in Chelmsford that the hospital grounds, which were vacated in November 2010, might be left derelict for a protracted period.
The Rock Investment group was founded by businessman Paul Kemsley, the former vice-chairman of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club and sometimes star of the BBC’s Apprentice programme. Mr Kemsley, a business associate of Mr Lewis, who owns Tottenham Hotspur, left the BBC programme after the high-profile collapse of the Rock Group.
Galliard Homes is a major UK property company whose managing director, Stephen Stuart Conway, is its largest shareholder.
Accounts for Galliard Homes for the year to the end of March 2010 show it paid a dividend of £75.4 million.
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