Sigh of relief as South Mall bank sells for €1.65m
The sweet music – just as the auction gavel came down on the ACC bank branch at 41 South Mall in Cork at €1.65 million – was however, very much for real. It came, unwittingly but right on cue, from the Choral Festival’s visiting Portadown Choir, rehearsing in the function room across the hotel corridor.
Bank rescue packages worth billions have been bandied about so much in the beleaguered Irish economy in recent months, that a paltry sum like €1.65m for a bricks and mortar bank property seems almost quaint. And, for the 50 or so suited figures in Cork’s Imperial Hotel, many of them underemployed estate agents, the sound of an auction hammer falling was indeed something to sing about, swoon over, indeed. The market has a pulse.
Some even opened a book, betting €5 a man, as to what price it might sell for, if at all – and one agent from DTZ scooped the pot, right to the penny.
The three-storey bank branch, right by the Peace Park and new boardwalk on the city’s traditional money and business heartland, had four bidders who moved in lugubrious €50,000 bids, from an opening bid of €1m.
When bids got to €1.6m (the AMV had been a still-modest €1.75m) auctioneer Anthony O’Regan of Keane Mahony Smith, selling jointly with HWBC, cajoled, “we’re very close to leaving it off, a few years ago €1.6m would have been the deposit”.
His vendors, he said, were willing, the property had a great location, and the reserve was realistic. Solicitor Sean Durcan, buying in trust (henceforth the solicitor who bought the bank) agreed, and got the great deal for a client, whose identity or background he didn’t divulge. It could be offices, an investment, or a riverside restaurant.
In the auctioneer’s protracted attempt to draw bids during a lull at €1.4m, Mr O’Regan had said “come on, the city needs it, the country needs it, more importantly we need it to sell”. And, he got there, a price floor has been found, and a value established.
