Cantillon: Clerys mortgage tells international story

The purchase of the Clery building on Dublin’s O’Connell Street in a move that saw the shop workforce suddenly jobless and a national retailing institution consigned to history, was certainly an instance of capitalism red in tooth and claw. It is also one that was global in its reach, with a US vendor and a UK/Irish purchaser, with the latter using shareholding companies in Guernsey and the Cayman Islands.

Mortgage documents lodged this week in the Companies Registration Office show two mortgages were registered last Friday against Natrium Ltd, the Cheyne Capital Management/Deidre Foley joint venture that bought the iconic building.

One is on behalf of QREA Ireland Ltd, part of Capita International Financial Services, the group that took over AIB International Capital Services some time ago. The second is on behalf of Fam Assets Ltd, the Dublin company that holds Foley’s 20 per cent share in Natrium, and Stornoway Finance Sarl, “acting through its compartment 26/Clock”.

Stornoway is a Luxembourg company which, despite having financial assets at the end of 2013 (its first year in business) of €181.5 million, had no employees.

It is a securitisation company that puts various loans into compartments within the company so the relevant creditors and shareholders have access only to that compartment's assets. The 26/Clock compartment is presumably linked directly to the Clerys transaction. Whether the use of the word clock is evidence of an element of sentimentality on the part of those behind the financial structuring involved, is not clear.

The property against which the mortgages were charged runs to pages of definitions and detail. The documents list 49 concession agreements, dating from April 1999 (with AG Clothing Ltd) to November 2014 (with Carphone Warehouse Ltd.). The earliest lease mentioned in the mortgages is from August 19th, 1897, when James Joseph Nagle and Joseph Downes entered into an agreement concerning the department store.