Quinlan follows hunch despite credit crunch

FINANCIER DEREK Quinlan seems determined not to let the global credit crunch get the better of him.

Quinlan was a key member of a consortium that agreed to pay €1.9 billion to Banco Santander recently to acquire its head office on the outskirts of Madrid. It is one of the biggest deals of its type in Europe.

Quinlan has invested in the deal in a personal capacity and is now shaking the trees on his home patch for suitable investors to take up some of the slack.

It is understood that Quinlan wants eight investors to stump up €50 million each in equity to help fund the deal.

In the current climate this could prove tricky although Quinlan has displayed an ability to land finance for big-ticket deals in the trickiest of markets.

No comment was available from the man himself, who prefers to operate under the radar.

The Irishman teamed up with Glenn Maud's PropInvest group in January to buy the Santander Group City complex in Madrid, in a deal offering a 4.5 per cent yield. It is not clear what stake Quinlan has in the project.

Santander, which has taken a 40-year lease on the 1.5 million sq m site, brought the complex to market last June as part of the €4 billion disposal programme of its commercial property assets to raise funds for a break-up bid for Dutch bank ABN Amro.

The complex includes a hotel and golf course and the deal is thought to offer the possibility of incremental increases in rental income.

Quinlan previously joined with PropInvest to buy Citigroup's Canary Wharf headquarters for £1 billion from Royal Bank of Scotland last December.

At the time of that deal, rumours circulated about Quinlan's ability to get it away at a time when the markets were heading south.

This latest transaction is seen as a sign of Quinlan's confidence in the European commercial property market.

It just remains to be seen if his wealthy contacts here share this confidence.