{"id":452401,"date":"2026-04-25T00:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T00:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/452401\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T00:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T00:02:13","slug":"former-arnotts-shareholder-left-estate-valued-at-e9m-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/452401\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Arnotts shareholder left estate valued at \u20ac9m \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Businessman Michael O\u2019Connor who was a key player in taking the Dublin department store <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/arnotts\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/arnotts\/\">Arnotts<\/a> off the stock market, left an estate worth almost \u20ac9 million when he died in 2004, according to papers published by the Probate Office this week. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">O\u2019Connor served a chairman of the board of Arnotts in the early 2000s and was a key member of the team, alongside the Nesbitt family, that took Arnotts off the Irish Stock Exchange in 2003. The deal valued the retailer at some \u20ac250 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A plan to redevelop Arnotts and various other properties located between O\u2019Connell Street and Liffey Street in Dublin\u2019s north inner city, was announced in 2006. Known as the Northern Quarter, it was to be a large-scale rejuvenation project at an estimated cost of about \u20ac750 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">However, the project caused friction among the shareholders and in May 2007, O\u2019Connor and his family launched a \u20ac200 million bid to buy out the Nesbitts, and take full control of Arnotts. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The bid was rejected and in August that year and the Nesbitt family agreed to buy out the O\u2019Connor stake for more than \u20ac40 million, ending the family\u2019s 70-year involvement with the Dublin retailer. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">O\u2019Connor described the exit at the time as \u201ccordial and friendly\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">O\u2019Connor, who was a popular member of Milltown Golf Club, died on August 11th 2004. He left his entire estate to his wife Ann. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Businessman Michael O\u2019Connor who was a key player in taking the Dublin department store Arnotts off the stock&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[199342,79,18,19,17],"class_list":["post-452401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-arnotts","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116462416428585161","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452401","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=452401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}