Receivers will be putting distressed properties worth €300m on the market soon. Developer Noel Smyth’s Alburn Real Estate Capital will be offered within the next few weeks. These holdings alone have an estimated value of €147m.
Brian and Mary Patricia O’Donnell’s property, 15 Westferry Circus, has also been put up for sale by its receiver. The asking price is £130m (€162m).
Mr. Smyth lost control of his UK portfolio of properties in May. Lenders were owed £200m (€250m) and Smyth’s company did not repay nor restructure the debt. The amount owing is secured through several layers of creditors. The lenders voted to appoint receivers from Savills and administrators from Moorfields to step in to take control of the portfolio when the debts came due without being repaid. The Alburn Real Estate Capital portfolio is made up of 45 properties in various regions of the UK.
One of the properties that will be sold is Project House on Tottenham Court Road in London. The portfolio is mixed bag of properties that includes retail units, industrial properties and office blocks.
Mr. Smyth’s company has signed an agreement to cooperate with the enforcement action to sell the properties. The portfolio will not be sold as a single unit. Instead, it will be broken into several lots that can be targeted at specific types of commercial property investors before offering them for sale on the open market.
Savills is also the receiver of 15 Westferry Circus, located in London’s Canary Wharf area. It is on the market with an asking price of £129.5m (€162m). Receivers were appointed in the summer when previous plans to sell the property due to unpaid debts fell through. According to Savills, the asking price would provide a buyer with a 6 per cent yield. Morgan Stanley is one of the sitting tenants of the property, and the US investment bank is in the 10th year of a 35-year lease where it agreed to pay £8.2m in rent per annum.
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