{"id":30384,"date":"2025-08-29T08:42:23","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T08:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/30384\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T08:42:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T08:42:23","slug":"nama-left-with-e70m-debt-as-builder-mick-bailey-closes-uk-business-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/30384\/","title":{"rendered":"Nama left with \u20ac70m debt as builder Mick Bailey closes UK business \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Builder Mick Bailey<\/a> has closed his property development business in England, appointing liquidators to a UK company that owed \u00a361 million (\u20ac70.55 million) to the National Asset Management Agency<\/a> (Nama<\/a>). <\/p>\n

Mr Bailey signed a resolution winding up Willsgrove Developments one month ago. The company previously had a registered office at Telford, Shropshire, and a business address in the same location in Swords, Dublin, as his Bovale Developments<\/a> group.<\/p>\n

A statement of affairs for Willsgrove on July 16th said company assets were subject to a \u00a361 million fixed charge from Nama, the State \u201cbad bank\u201d set up at the height of the financial crisis to clear soured bank loans from Irish banks.<\/p>\n

Willsgrove had \u20ac34,138 in assets just before liquidation, leaving an estimated total deficiency of \u00a361.36 million. Liquidators Milan Vuceljic and Michael Solomons are based at John Street, London.<\/p>\n

Mr Bailey declined to comment on the winding up of the business in England. He had no comment when asked whether Willsgrove\u2019s Nama liabilities would be met by other parts of business group.<\/p>\n

Bovale realised some \u20ac44.6 million in February from the sale of a large land bank near the M50 motorway. The 36.9 hectares (91.4-acre) site, known as the Dublin Central Logistics Park, was sold to three buyers, among them the Central Bank of Ireland.<\/p>\n

\"\"Why is the delivery of vital infrastructure so slow in Ireland?<\/p>\n

The company previously realised some \u20ac50 million from the sale of the 47.92-hectare (118.40 acre) Killamonan Business Park to Iput Real Estate.<\/p>\n

There was no comment from Nama on any aspect of its dealings with Mr Bailey. The bad bank is itself scheduled to wind down its operations by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Willsgrove\u2019s last annual accounts, for 2023, said the business disposed of its remaining property that year. Nama loan facilities had expired and had not been formally renewed, the document stated.<\/p>\n

Bank loans and accrued interest were owed to Nama and secured by \u201cunlimited personal guarantees\u201d from Mr Bailey, the accounts stated.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Mick Bailey returns to board of property group Bovale having previously been disqualified as a company directorOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Mr Bailey resumed full control of Bovale last December after a decade-long hiatus in which he was disqualified as a company director for seven years in 2014.<\/p>\n

With his brother Tom Bailey he set up Bovale the early 1980s, going on to rank among the biggest landowners in the State.<\/p>\n

The brothers made a \u20ac22.17 million tax settlement in 2006, the State\u2019s largest.<\/p>\n

In 2013, the High Court disqualified the brothers from acting as company directors after finding they were guilty of \u201cparticularly serious\u201d misconduct and fraud. Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan referred to the brothers\u2019 \u201csystematic falsification\u201d of books of account and a \u20ac6 million understatement of their gross remuneration over two years in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Bovale\u2019s legal status as an unlimited company means it is not required to make public filings of its financial accounts.<\/p>\n

However, an October 2024 audit report by KPMG warned of \u201cmaterial uncertainty\u201d over Bovale\u2019s ability to continue as a going concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe group and company\u2019s loan facilities with its lenders, the National Asset Management Agency, have expired and have not been formally renewed,\u201d KPMG said then.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe directors are in ongoing discussions with Nama, the funding provider. While progress has been made during the year, the loans have not yet been formally renewed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Willsgrove, the UK company, incurred a pretax loss of \u00a3817,000 in 2023 after generating \u00a33 million from the sale of its last UK property.<\/p>\n

Last November the company said the directors planned to liquidate the company as soon as possible. \u201cApproval has been requested from Nama to commence the liquidation process,\u201d it said then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Builder Mick Bailey has closed his property development business in England, appointing liquidators to a UK company that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[24135,79,18,19,17,24133,24132,24134],"class_list":{"0":"post-30384","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-bovale","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-mick-bailey","14":"tag-nama","15":"tag-national-asset-management-agency-nama"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}