Dragon’s roar on Twitter gets bank’s attention

Dragons’ Den star Duncan Bannatyne has cracked how to get the attention of the IBRC special liquidator — you go on Twitter.

Just over four hours after Mr Bannatyne questioned why the Government would not accept full repayment on the loans that he owes to the now liquidated IBRC, he received a letter from the special liquidator giving him permission to go ahead with land deals to help repay his borrowings.

The people of Ireland should know there government is turning down offers of £1 in the £1 for part repayment of debt

— Duncan Bannatyne (@DuncanBannatyne) May 14, 2013

He tweeted that the Government was turning down offers of a “£1 in the £1” for part repayment of debt.

Mr Bannatyne, with tongue firmly in cheek, told the Irish Examiner it was clearly a complete coincidence the two events happened within hours of each other: “I have no idea why it happened, it couldn’t possibly be related to Twitter.”

A spokesperson for IBRC said the reason it had taken so long to respond was due to the complex nature of what he was proposing to do, as it involved individual asset sales within a portfolio of assets.

The owner of a string of health clubs said he and his team had sat down in January and sketched out how they were going to repay borrowings of £180m (€211m) to IBRC.

They came up with a six-point plan that would involve selling off spare land to fund the repayments.

However, the Government’s surprise liquidation of the former Anglo Irish Bank on Feb 6 meant they had been unable to get clearance to sell the land.

He said he had contracts to sell three plots of land in Mansfield, Edinburgh, and Lowestoft, with a total value of £3.2m (€3.7m), all of which will go towards paying off the loans.

After three attempts to contact the special liquidator fell on deaf ears, Mr Bannatyne resorted to Twitter.

He said that if a company had displayed this lack of interaction with a client in the context of Dragons’ Den he would be shocked.

He said he had a Google alert for IBRC and that is where he has been getting information on the liquidation. “The bank is very busy with tens of millions, obviously too busy to care about me and my £3m.”

Mr Bannatyne said his loans to IBRC were performing. He has repaid £58m of the £180m owed and is repaying the remaining £122m at a rate of £10m a year.

Although the Government has said it plans to package performing IBRC loans together and to sell them as portfolios, Mr Bannatyne said he had received no indication at all what was happening to his loans.