Many companies, limited information

The Big Developers:The Cosgrave brothers' interests are diverse, but difficult to pin down, writes Colm Keena, Public Affairs Correspondent.

Of the developers examined in the course of this series, the Cosgrave brothers have the least amount of financial information publicly available. A request for a briefing about the value of their property development business was not acceded to.

The three brothers, Michael, Peter and Joe, are directors and equal part shareholders in a construction and property development group active in the commercial and residential sectors in Ireland, as well as owning the Radisson SAS St Helen's Hotel in Dublin and a significant property portfolio in the UK. Even in cases where the Cosgrave group files the accounts of limited companies to the Companies Registration Office, there is very little information in the accounts, given the size of the Cosgrave operation.

For example, the accounts Cosgrave Property Developments Ltd for the year to the end of April 2006 show a pre-tax profit of just €989,838. The previous year the figure was €2,198. The company was set up in 2001 and is involved primarily in the construction of commercial and residential properties, according to the accounts.

It has six registered mortgages with AIB, Anglo Irish Bank and Ulster Bank, and property mortgaged includes sites at Townsend Street, Dublin, and Bray, Co Wicklow. Sales during the year were €13.8 million and the value of stock (development sites) jumped from €36.7 million to €98.9 million in the course of the year.

The company's indebtedness to the banks was €61.5 million but it had another €30 million borrowed from other Cosgrave group undertakings. The company received financing from Cosgrave Property Group, a partnership under which the three brothers trade. Sometimes the owners of companies put money into their ventures in this way as it makes it easier to get the money back out when the time comes. If the money goes in as share capital there are more restrictions on what can be done.

The company had construction costs of €89.7 million during 2006, costs which were charged against the profits of the company (which had no employees). But how much of that cost constituted profit to the Cosgrave brothers, through one or more of their construction companies or through their partnership, is not known.

Cosgrave Property Developments is a subsidiary of Borg Developments, an Irish registered unlimited company owned by an Isle of Man company, Waterpool Ltd, which is in turn owned by another Irish registered unlimited company, Genstar.

Borg Developments, which is involved in the purchase and resale of sites, has 39 mortgages registered for the period since 1985, the majority for plots of land and buildings in Dublin. Most of those mortgages are taken out with AIB, and some are with Lombard and Ulster.

Because the accounts of Cosgrave Property Developments Ltd do not form part of any publicly available consolidated accounts for the Cosgrave group, it is not possible to establish how much the group is making out of the company's activities.

The brothers are in receipt of substantial rental income. One of the Genstar group companies is St Helen's Hotel Ltd, which operates the Radisson hotel of that name in Stillorgan, Dublin. The accounts for 2005 for that company show that a partnership comprising the three brothers was paid €1.65 million in rent by the company during the year, as part of a 35-year lease arrangement.

Coslet Ltd, a non-group company owned by the three brothers, is described as being involved in the letting of its own property. Its abridged accounts do not show how much it received during 2005, the most recent year for which accounts are filed, but they do show that rent of €893,352 became due by the company to the brothers' partnership, Cosgrave Property Group, during the year.

The partnership also receives €638,678 per annum in rent from the State for a building in Blanchardstown used as a social welfare centre, according to the Office of Public Works.