Who gained from the bubble?

[Schuhart]

Apologies if this is already well covered, but found the question on my mind again after reading this article. For every patsy who overpaid for a site, there must be someone who gained a windfall.

The linked story says a developer paid €115 million in 2007 for the Grafton Street shops occupied by River Island and Wallis.

River Island pay €2,150,000 in rent. Wallis pay €470,000, which may increase post review to €600,000. Which works out as a pretty miserable 2.4% return on the investment. I take it the expectation was that speculative gains in the capital value of the building would justify the price (leaving aside the lack of logic in expecting capital to appreciate in value independently of the rent).

But presumably someone pocketed the €115 million. Frequently in these cases we don't seem to hear about who.

In this case, it seems to have been purchased from Arnotts.

One part of the asset , 102 /103 Grafton Street, was acquired from department store Arnotts, while the other part, 104 Grafton Street, was purchased from Arnotts Staff Pension Fund.

That's fine - I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong with Arnotts making a killing in this way. But should we not hear a bit more about these winners from the bubble? Just to underline the fact that the counterparty to some of these lunatic transactions has profited from a sound business decision.

In the case of the Glass Bottle Factory site, the beneficiaries of the sale seemed to be Dublin Port and some crowd called South Wharf plc - who apparently were the operators of the Glass Bottle factory.

So presumably both of those entities have trousered the vast amount of money paid for this site. Again, fair play to them. Why would they not get the best price. But, again, all the media coverage is for the losers. Why not remind us of these winners too? Why not remind ourselves that not everyone was an eejit.

[Edo]

PV Doyle family - they must have cleared over 300 mill from Sean Dunne easily

whats your point Sch? - praise them as geniuses because some eejit offered the GDP of Gabon for 2 acres of land?

Or should they give up some that in a windfall taxes ,provided they didnt invest the winnings in bank of Ireland shares?

[rhonda15]

Apologies if this is already well covered, but found the question on my mind again after reading this article. For every patsy who overpaid for a site, there must be someone who gained a windfall.

The linked story says a developer paid €115 million in 2007 for the Grafton Street shops occupied by River Island and Wallis.

River Island pay €2,150,000 in rent. Wallis pay €470,000, which may increase post review to €600,000. Which works out as a pretty miserable 2.4% return on the investment. I take it the expectation was that speculative gains in the capital value of the building would justify the price (leaving aside the lack of logic in expecting capital to appreciate in value independently of the rent).

But presumably someone pocketed the €115 million. Frequently in these cases we don't seem to hear about who.

In this case, it seems to have been purchased from Arnotts.That's fine - I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong with Arnotts making a killing in this way. But should we not hear a bit more about these winners from the bubble? Just to underline the fact that the counterparty to some of these lunatic transactions has profited from a sound business decision.

In the case of the Glass Bottle Factory site, the beneficiaries of the sale seemed to be Dublin Port and some crowd called South Wharf plc - who apparently were the operators of the Glass Bottle factory.

So presumably both of those entities have trousered the vast amount of money paid for this site. Again, fair play to them. Why would they not get the best price. But, again, all the media coverage is for the losers. Why not remind us of these winners too? Why not remind ourselves that not everyone was an eejit.

I've often thought the same thing - I guess if I had made a couple of hundred million selling at the top of the bubble I would try to keep my mouth shut too.

But yeah let's hear it.

[katy brock]

Why not remind us of these winners too? Why not remind ourselves that not everyone was an eejit.

Wasn't it members of the Doyle family who sold all those seventies hotels to yer man Dunne.
They must be crapping themselves with laughter

Feargal Quinn flogged all his old-fashioned shops to some gobsh!tes as well.

Fair play to him!

No begrudgery here. They coined it!

[Eamonn20Bn plus interest]

The government are cutting welfare for the blind while the establishment tell everyone there is no alternative. Those who sold the sites are sitting on a mountain of gold and keeping very quiet - while the establishment denies even the existence of pots of gold that might be taxed.

[PaddyJoe McGillycuddy]

Someone who seems to have come out of the crash in good shape is Stephen Vernon of Green Property.

Green Property, the firm which Vernon chairs, is reported to be acquiring a substantial portion of nationalised Anglo Irish Bank’s property portfolio. The Anglo deal is understood to involve the company taking over the running of the bank’s Select Geared Property Fund, a €650million fund that was launched in 2007 close to the peak of the commercial property boom. Green may also take over other smaller Anglo property funds.

Also bought property interests from AIB back in March.
Green machine: ThePost.ie

Green is buyer of property at centre of fraud probe - European, Business - Independent.ie

[Schuhart]

should they give up some that in a windfall taxes ,provided they didnt invest the winnings in bank of Ireland shares?

OK, I'd be lying if I pretended that this wasn't on my mind. And even if they did invest it in Bank of Ireland shares, I'd be asking who they bought those shares off.

The government are cutting welfare for the blind while the establishment tell everyone there is no alternative. Those who sold the sites are sitting on a mountain of gold and keeping very quiet - while the establishment denies even the existence of pots of gold that might be taxed.

Indeed, but we don't need to just gas about it. I mean, a quick Google identified Arnotts as the beneficiary for those Grafton Street shops and Dublin Port and South Wharf plc as the beneficiaries of the Glass Bottle Factory site. Plus this thread reminded us that the PV Doyle family must have gotten a package off Sean Dunne.

The information is there. Why isn't someone bringing it together?

[Panopticon]

In many cases, money from property sales went into new developments, so a windfall is countered by a drop in asset value. Doesn't Arnotts have a big development under way? (Or is that Clerys?) In this way, it can be difficult to find the ultimate beneficiaries of the price bubble.

[Cael]

Irish farmers were paid 13 billion euro for land for development in just three years between 2005 and 2008. There must be still a lot of that stashed away. Maybe we should do like Lenin did with the grain hording Kulaks...

[Cassandra Syndrome]

Depends what they invested that money into. I doubt they put it into their back pocket. The wisest would have deposited it and earned interest on it or bought Gold or Silver at the time. If a lot of it was diversified into equities, property, derivatives etc. a lot of it would have been wiped out.

Ireland has lost 50% of its wealth since those deals were done.