John Duggan’s Cabra property group has bought back part of the portfolio which he originally brought into Mountleigh, paying £40m for the Rohan Group.
Rohan was acquired by Mountleigh in 1988 as part of its takeover of Phoenix Property & Finance, where John Duggan was then chief executive. Duggan was brought into Mountleigh to head its development arm and was briefly chief executive of the company, before losing out in a power struggle with the then chairman, Tony Clegg.
The portfolio which he is now buying contains industrial and commercial Irish and UK investment properties, including Georgian office buildings in Dublin’s financial district, the Airways Industrial estate outside Dublin and an £11.46m land bank. The investment portfolio has been valued at £32.1m.
Cabra is paying £34.4m in cash plus 5.36m Cabra shares at 110p a share, some 30p above Cabra’s market price. And, in a related transaction, Cabra is selling Mayfayre House in 22-26 Shepherd Street, W1, to Mountleigh for £10m. It is also acquiring a 44% stake in a Houston-based residential developer, Hallmark, for £3.3m cash. Smurfit Paribas Bank is lending Cabra £27.7m for two years to help fund the purchases.
According to Duggan, he is getting a bargain. The sale is the first major disposal undertaken by Mountleigh since US investors Nelson Peltz and Peter May moved into the driving seat last November.
