Six years ago Derek Quinlan, the former tax inspector from Dublin, outbid one of the richest men in the world, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
Quinlan and his partners bought a clutch of London’s smartest hotels — the Savoy, Claridge’s, Berkeley and Connaught — for £750m, outflanking the Saudi billionaire. It was a deal that epitomised the era of easy money.
Today the hefty loans taken out to fund the hotels’ purchase need to be refinanced and wealthy individuals and sovereign funds are hovering in the wings, hoping the owners will be forced to sell.
During the credit boom, Quinlan, 62, became one of Europe’s best-known property investors as his acquisition vehicle snapped up a string of high-profile assets, often in partnership with other buyers.
He was involved in a joint venture to buy the Canary Wharf skyscraper used by Citigroup as its London headquarters, and bought a stake in the Madrid head office of Santander, the Spanish banking giant.
His partners in the luxury hotel deal included Paddy McKillen, an Irish property developer, and Peter Green, a Manchester-born businessman worth £650m, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.
The investors quickly recouped part of their initial outlay when they sold the Savoy eight months after the original acquisition to Alwaleed for about £230m. The three remaining hotels were relaunched under a new holding company called Maybourne.
More recently, however, some of Quinlan’s interests have suffered, falling in value during the economic downturn.
While the Maybourne hotels continue to trade strongly — the refurbished Connaught, for example, has proved both a critical and commercial success — the debt needs to be restructured ahead of a December deadline.
The Sunday Times