Montenegrin officials point at Fingers

There may be further trouble ahead for the fedora-toting former Irish Nationwide chief executive Michael Fingleton and his efforts to redevelop a luxury hotel in an idyllic coastal spot in Montenegro.

The local mayor is now on his case.

Earlier this week, The Irish Times published photographs of the Hotel Fjord in Kotor, for which Fingleton paid a reported €5 million for a controlling stake in 2006 and which he has pledged to local officials he will redevelop.

The abandoned property, now a very prominent eyesore in the town, is strewn with rubbish and pock marked in places by some rather phallic looking graffiti.

The office of the local mayor, Maria Catovic, has since been on to tell us that officials are planning to use tax laws to force New Fjord Developments, Fingleton's company that owns the abandoned hotel, to redevelop it.

Simeona Begovic, of Kotor’s property secretariat, says the local authority is no longer in contact with Fingleton over his plans for the property.

He last met officials last year, when it was suggested he would publish plans for the hotel by September.

“[We are] not in the possession of the information when the reconstruction of Fjord Hotel will begin,” said Begovic. “It is in the best interest of Kotor municipality to start reconstructing Fjord Hotel as soon as possible, so it is making efforts to impose tax laws upon the land owners of real estate which is intended to be tourism oriented . . . in order for them to start working on site and put the land to its proper use.”

Incidentally, the photographs of the mess that is now Hotel Fjord include one of a meeting room strewn with broken-down banners for Beobanka, the Serbian financial institution that went bust a few years back.

I presume that room will be among the first to be cleaned up should Fingleton ever get on with the hotel’s redevelopment.