Hotel Phoenicia caught up in Ireland’s financial storm

Hotel Phoenicia operators Cuffe (Malta) Limited is in the process of refinancing its debt with beleaguered INBS Bank in Dublin, to an “alternative banking institution outside of Ireland.”

The news was revealed to MaltaToday by the operating company, that explained that these negotiations will be concluded by the end of the year.

The hotel property is owned by six Irish investors, who took over the hotel in 2007. Among the hotel’s directors is 65 year-old Paddy Kelly, Ireland’s most notorious developer, who is reported to owe Irish banks almost €1 billion.

Kelly, together with another handful of mega developers in Ireland, is being blamed for the banking crash in Ireland.

The Phoenicia hotel property is owned by Cuffe (Malta) Limited, which is registered in Malta, however it is a debtor of the Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS), an Irish bank which has come under government control in the recent Irish banking crisis.

The National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), which was set up by the Irish government in 2009 and absorbed billions of so called “toxic debts” from four major banking institutions in Ireland, has taken over the loan undertaken by Cuffe (Malta) together with another €10 billion of the INBS debts.

Last year, Paddy Kelly went on national radio RTE 1 and baldly declared that he owed “hundreds of millions” of euros to various banks.

Those banks have since been left exposed, and Kelly appeared before Dublin’s High Court admitting he was “contemplating” on initiating bankruptcy procedures.

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