O’Flynn says he has €25m to pay loans

Cork developer Michael O’Flynn has upped the ante in his battle to retain control of his building empire by revealing he can immediately repay the €16.7m in personal loans as demanded by the company who took over his Nama loans — and also the remaining €8.2m he owes in personal loans.

Mr O’Flynn wrote to Carbon Finance, an Irish-registered subsidiary of US private equity giant, Blackstone, yesterday to inform them he could meet their demand for repayment of €16.7m of personal loans and also repay all of his personal loans with them which total €24.9m.

The move came ahead of a crucial High Court decision today over the future of O’Flynn Construction, which was placed into interim examinership last month.

Carbon Finance Limited had sought to appoint receivers over some of Mr O’Flynn’s properties when they deemed that he was not in a position to repay his personal loans and had followed this with a series of steps in reliance on the alleged failure to meet the demand.

They also presented a petition to the High Court to appoint an interim examiner to four of the O’Flynn Group’s Irish companies.

The O’Flynn Group is seeking to have the interim examiner removed “on the basis that Carbon Finance Limited failed to disclose all material matters to the court in its application”.

The O’Flynn Group is arguing that “the companies were up to date in all their payment obligations, had significant cash on hand, had been co-operating with Carbon and supplying it with financial information and there existed a number of disputes about how the loan facilities were now being operated by Carbon as compared to Nama”.

Mr O’Flynn is also applying for an order to the effect that demands in relation to his personal loans were unlawful and therefore, the steps that followed were also invalid. He says the personal loans were being fully serviced.

The O’Flynn Group of companies exited Nama in May of this year when Carbon purchased its loans. The personal loans were part of this €1.8bn debt package.

Michael McAteer, of Grant Thornton, was appointed interim examiner to O’Flynn Construction Co, O’Flynn Construction BTC, O’Flynn Construction (Rochestown) and Eastgate Developments (Cork).

Earlier this month, the High Court heard that Carbon Finance put in a receiver following a demand for the immediate payment by Mr O’Flynn of a €16m personal loan, which had not been met. O’Flynn claimed he had not been given enough time to meet the debt and said he could have done so had the time scale been “reasonable”.

A spokesman for Blackstone last night refused to comment.