New owners have shared interest in property

Interest in property development and property transactions connects most of the new owners of the Superquinn group.

The better known and wealthiest of the seven figures involved in the Select Retail Holdings group are Mr Bernard McNamara (54) and Mr Gerry O'Reilly, both of whom are very successful property developers.

The two men are currently working together on a €200 million commercial and residential development at Merrion Road, Dublin.

The agents for the huge scheme are Spain Courtney Doyle, a successful property consultancy firm based in Dublin. Two of the principals in the firm, Mr David Courtney (43) and Mr Bernard Doyle (50), are part of the Select Retail consortium.

Another member, Mr Simon Cantrell (47), a corporate finance specialist, has worked with Mr Courtney in recent times.

The other members of the group are Mr Kieran Ryan (52), a chartered accountant, and Mr Simon Burke (45). Mr Burke, a native of Dublin who has had a very successful career in the UK, is to take on the position of executive chairman of Superquinn.

The McNamara construction group was founded in Co Clare 70 years ago and is one of the largest such groups in the State. It was founded by Mr Michael McNamara and is now run by his eldest son, Mr Bernard McNamara. The group's website says its turnover in the year to end March 2003, including VAT, was €226 million. The previous year it was €236 million.

Current projects include St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin, the Midland Regional Hospital, Tullamore, and the Hanover Quay apartment development in the Dublin docklands.

Mr O'Reilly has a number of hotels and other property interests around the State, including the five-star Aghadoe Heights Hotel in Killarney, Co Kerry. As well as conducting his own property development projects he has been involved in a number of ventures with Mr McNamara.

Mr Courtney and Mr Doyle worked together in Lisney estate agents, Mr Courtney in the building surveying division and Mr Doyle in investment.

They moved to set up Spain Courtney Doyle in 1989, one of the first multidisciplinary practices set up in the property area in Dublin.

Mr Courtney and Mr Doyle are directors of Marumba Ltd, a company involved in a €15 million upgrade of the Finglas Main Centre in Dublin. The Superquinn group includes an outlet in Finglas, but not in this development.

Mr Cantrell is a corporate finance expert who has been involved as adviser in a number of management buyouts, acquisitions and expansion deals. When in Alan Maguire & Partners he was involved as adviser in the taking private of the printing and packaging firm, Adare. He left to set up on his own two years ago.

Mr Ryan is a chartered accountant who has his own practice in Mount Street in Dublin. He is a former tax inspector with the Revenue Commissioners, where he worked with another former tax inspector turned accountant, Mr Derek Quinlan. The two men had a practice together in the 1980s before going their separate ways.

Mr Ryan does a lot of tax and business work with a number of publicly known Irish family businesses. He is tax spokesman for the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland. He has a number of property interests in the State and has had business dealings with some other members of the Select Retail group.

Mr Burke joined the Virgin group in 1987 and took over its retail arm two years later. In 1994 he merged Virgin Retail with WH Smith's music chain, Our Price. In 1999 he joined toy retailer Hamleys. More recently, he had been working on private equity deals and last year led an unsuccessful £950 million bid for WH Smith. He has known Mr Cantrell for a number of years.