Irish entrepreneur Noel Smyth has lost his long-running battle to retain control of his UK property portfolio after failing to restructure or repay £180m of outstanding debt.
Trustee Rothschild this week enforced on the 45-strong Alburn Real Estate UK secondary portfolio, appointing two LPA receivers from Savills after Smyth’s failure to meet an accelerated repayment demand.
It has also appointed Moorfields Corporate Recovery as administrator to Alburn subsidiaries, which hold seven properties in Scotland.
Rothschild said that Alburn had now “indicated its willingness to work with the loan servicer, receivers and administrators in their efforts to maximise recoveries on behalf of bondholders”.
An orderly liquidation of the portfolio, which was once valued at £200m, is expected to follow.
It comprises more than 25 offices worth a total of £94.5m, around a dozen industrial warehouses together worth £22.1m, and three retail assets worth a total of £12.9m.
The move comes after a number of attempts to unwind the defaulted Alburn REC 6 European securitisation.
Smyth has been battling to maintain the assets for more than two years, and attempted to persuade investors in the £184m of securitised debt secured against the portfolio to give him a three-year loan extension.
Brookland Partners and CBRE, advisers to the bond holders and Rothschild, had been assessing options for the best way to see as much of the debt paid back as possible.
