Bernard Doyle, a Dublin estate agent who invested in boom deals including the buyouts of Superquinn and the Shelbourne Hotel, has been declared bankrupt in England.
Doyle, a co-founder of Spain Courtney Doyle, moved to London last year and filed for bankruptcy in March. A bankruptcy order was made in the High Court in London on May 8.
Official records show Doyle sought bankruptcy using an address in Twickenham, southwest London, having moved from the south Dublin suburb of Dalkey.
Spain Courtney Doyle has closed its Dublin office but is still trading from a London office.
Doyle set up the estate agency in 1989 with Paddy Spain and David Courtney, and the agency advised property developers including Bernard McNamara and Jerry O’Reilly.
Advertisement
He later invested in several deals alongside McNamara, including the 2005 acquisition of Superquinn, the supermarket chain, for €450m.
The retailer was bought by the Musgrave Group last year for about €200m after going into receivership.
Doyle also backed the €260m purchase and refurbishment of the Shelbourne Hotel and the acquisition of the Montrose Hotel. He also invested in the €50m buyout of Champion Sports, which was sold on to JD Sports last year for less than €20m. Doyle and his brothers also developed the Brooklodge Hotel and Macreddin Village in Co Wicklow.
Separately, Dawn Maye, a daughter of the late Liam Maye, one of the developers of the Dundrum town centre, has also been declared bankrupt in England.
Maye moved to London last year and a bankruptcy order was made in Croydon county court on May 14.
Advertisement
Maye previously owned Ashfield College, a private grind school, with her husband Ian Redmond, one of the owners of Flannery’s pub and the Twenty One nightclub in Dublin. A consortium that included Redmond paid €14.5m for Flannery’s in 2008.
Maye resigned last month from a number of Maye family companies, including Mayeco Properties, which owes €57.5m to AIB. The company owns a block in the Sweepstakes development in Ballsbridge in Dublin, which has been valued at €35m.
Doyle and Maye are the latest Irish business people to seek bankruptcy in England, following the developers Ray Grehan, John Fleming, Paddy Fitzpatrick and Tom McFeely.
Steve Thatcher, a solicitor based in Leicester, who runs www.irishbankruptcyuk.ie, claims to have helped Irish clients escape more than €1 billion of debt by taking advantage of a booming trade in bankruptcy tourism. A British newspaper last week said Thatcher had at least 55 Irish clients in the process of clearing some €1.2 billion by using UK courts to wipe out loans taken out in the republic.
It said that one property speculator wrote off €150m during a 35-second court appearance.
Advertisement
New bankruptcy laws here are expected be to be published by the end of June.