Asset management, share purchase and site assembly

The Big Developers:Liam Carroll's wealth is probably in excess of €1 billion - but he's not likely to confirm or deny it, writes Colm Keena, Public Affairs Correspondent.

A request for information about his business affairs to Liam Carroll by way of one of his companies met with no response other than some surprise that the request would be made in the first place.

Ironically, given his famous desire for privacy, Carroll's major holding companies have up to relatively recently filed substantial amounts of financial information with the Companies Registration Office (CRO).

Zelderbridge, the largest of his holding companies, indicated in the most up-to-date information filed that it had net assets of €779 million at the end of December 2005.

The most recently available information for another of his holding companies, Vantive Holdings, showed it had net assets of €89.7 million as of March 2002. No doubt the assets of both groups have been put to good work in the years since. It would also be surprising if Carroll did not have other substantial assets held outside both groups. His total wealth, therefore, is likely to be well in excess of €1 billion.

The details concerning both holding companies are no longer made public.

Zelderbridge was established in 2003. As an unlimited company it is not legally obliged to file accounts with the CRO. However, for reasons unclear to this reporter, it filed non-statutory accounts with the CRO up to recently and these show that the operating profits made by the 66 companies it owned in 2005 totalled €28.2 million.

The companies, as would be expected, are involved in property development, property dealing and investment. Their assets include assets that were formerly part of Dunloe Ewart, the plc brought private by Carroll in 2002 in a deal that valued it at €197 million.

A Zelderbridge company, Andinka, increased its issued share capital by slightly less than €200 million during 2005, the new shares being paid for in cash. The company makes loans to other companies in the group. In 2005 these loans were worth €425 million.

CARROLL AND HISwife Róisín became directors of Zoe Developments in the late 1980s and used it to build many of the cheaper apartment schemes in Dublin city centre that provided their springboard to great wealth.

Zoe's first mortgage was taken with the British vendors of a number of buildings on Bachelors Walk, rather than with a bank. The accounts of Zoe for the 18 months to December 1987 show it had work in progress at the end of the period worth £292,954. There was no money in the bank and the company's accumulated profits were £45,088.

By 2000, Zoe had accumulated profits of £21 million. But by then it was just one of a number of companies owned by Carroll and forming part of a group headed by the holding company Vantive Holdings. Turnover for the group by 2002 was €98 million and it had accumulated profits of €73.3 million. Pre-tax profit for the year was €16 million, not much less than the €18 million that the group's 300 employees earned that year.

By that time, the main apartment development company in the group, Danninger, included in its 2000 and 2001 accounts some calculations as to the margins it was achieving. These showed that each year a 32 per cent operating profit was being achieved on sales made. In 2001, sales totalled £76.6 million.

In more recent years, Carroll has been in the news for his investments in listed companies, buying up shares without disclosing his intentions.

He has built up a stake worth €163 million in Irish Continental Group, the plc that owns leases on property in Dublin Port, and a €262.8 million stake in Greencore, the convenience food company that has significant land assets in Carlow, in Mallow, Co Cork, and elsewhere.

These shares are held by his group companies and are mortgaged.

The records of the Office of Public Works show that Danninger receives €3.76 million annually in rent from the State for properties in Dublin.

• Regular Tuesday columns, Context and Give Me a Break resume next week.