It all started with a minority role in a minor vulture fund-style deal.

In the summer of 2012, Kennedy Wilson won a bid for Project Prince, a non-performing commercial loan book offloaded by the Lloyds group as it wound down Bank of Scotland’s exposure to the Irish property market.

The US firm announced in August that year that it had partnered with Deutsche Bank for the acquisition of the portfolio secured on what it described as “predominantly commercial real estate assets across a mixture of asset classes, with the majority located in Dublin,” totalling €361 million in receivables across 143 loans.

The deal was in fact reported to have been clinched for €61 million. While Kennedy Wilson ran the operation, it later disclosed it had invested just $7.4 million of its own equity in the purchase, leaving Deutsche as the larger partner.

The minority stake means Project Prince properties were never detailed in Kennedy Wilson’s portfolio disclosures to investors. But the firm had dipped a toe in the Dublin office market and had seen enough to decide that it wanted more.

From then on, it would proceed differently. Its strategy was to secure full title to assets, improve them or build more, and hold on to them for the long term, with only a minority of non-core office and retail buildings sold to date.

Following our exploration of Kennedy Wilon’s residential portfolio, and ahead of an in-depth discussion of its 20-year Irish strategy, this is the deal-by-deal story of its emergence and establishment as a major player on the Irish commercial property scene over the past decade.

Navigate the maps below, open them in full screen for central Dublin or outside the city centre, or keep reading for the full list of properties. “Read more” links from the map will open in a new window, just close it to return to the map.

Brooklawn House

When IBRC appointed Kieran Wallace in March 2012 as receiver to Brooklawn Property Holding, he wasted no time in unwinding Anglo Irish Bank debt secured on Brooklawn House by the Crampton family company and its co-investors. By August that year, the office building located off Ballsbridge’s Shelbourne Road was sold and Wallace had booked €14.7 million in proceeds for IBRC.

The buyers were Kennedy Wilson and its Canadian joint-venture partner Fairfax. The US firm reported purchasing the 45,105 sq ft building with no debt financing, though it was later included in its 2015 refinance with Met Life. It was leased to several corporate tenants including state agencies.

Less than four years on, not counting rent collected, the new owners doubled their money when they sold Brooklawn House to Iput for €34.6 million. The property is now known as No3 Shelbourne Buildings.

State Street building and Capital Dock

For more than 25 years, there have been plans for a landmark Dublin tower at the junction of the Liffey and Dodder rivers and Grand Canal Dock. The fact that Kennedy Wilson ended up being the one developing it as part of the complex now known as Capital Dock tells the story of prized property assets in the capital in a nutshell.

Before plans for the competing U2 Tower and Dunloe Ewart projects both died in the twilight of the Celtic Tiger boom, developer Liam Carroll had secured control of rival firm Dunloe Ewart in 2002. This came with the south docklands site, one of the many properties dispersed by Nama and receivers to Carroll’s empire a decade later.

By 2012, an office building fully let to US investment bank State Street had emerged on Sir John Rogerson Quay, but 3.5 acres remained undeveloped. That was when Ulster Bank pounced, appointing receivers to loans secured on the property as part of a wider move against Carroll businesses.

In December of that year, a 50-50 joint venture between Kennedy Wilson and its Canadian partner Fairfax bought the debt, which they said had a principal balance of €120 million outstanding. Less than five months later, the new creditors foreclosed on the entire property, which then appeared on their books valued at €108.5 million.

Kennedy Wilson, however, reported that this valuation included a $30.1 million gain “in excess of the basis of the previously held mortgage note,” suggesting that the new owners had in fact paid less than €90 million for the debt securing them the property. Fairfax described the purchase as “perhaps the finest office building in Dublin, built in 2009 and 100 per cent leased to State Street Bank for 25 years, for one third of its construction cost with an unleveraged yield of approximately 8.5 per cent”. Not that the deal itself was unleveraged – the SPV established for this acquisition reported borrowing €52.8 million at the time.

In 2014, Kennedy Wilson brought in a third partner to develop the vacant section of the site. This was the state’s bad bank Nama, which was in control of the final strip of land at the confluence of the three waterways. By contributing its property, Nama increased the size of the project to five acres and obtained a 15 per cent stake. The newly branded Capital Dock development was placed in a fund managed by Kennedy Wilson. 

It obtained planning permission in 2015 for seven buildings combining 370,000 sq ft of commercial space, across three office buildings and restaurant and retail units, with 190 apartments including those in the 23-storey tower overlooking the river, now the tallest building in the Republic. Construction was ready to start, with Sisk as the main contractor.

In 2017, US bank JP Morgan forward-purchased one of the office buildings, 200 Capital Dock, and the online recruitment firm Indeed leased the other two for 20 years at an annual rent of €11.9 million. Although the sale price for the 130,000-sq-ft 200 Capital Dock was never disclosed, Kennedy Wilson reported receiving instalments totalling €108 million for that deal across 2017 and 2018, with a residual value cleared upon delivery of the building in 2019 suggesting total receipts of around €114 million. 

Over the same period, Kennedy Wilson booked in the region of €80 million in costs to develop 200 Capital Dock, with the difference contributing to fund the wider project along with its owners’ equity and debt from Deutsche Bank.

By the end of 2018, they declared Capital Dock complete, reporting a €350 million total investment in the project. Accounts filed in the US show that around two thirds of this sum went towards developing the office blocks and one third towards the residential buildings. The initial cost of land was deemed nearly negligible, booked as a €5 million asset in a footnote to the State Street building purchase.

In 2019, with office rent flowing in from Indeed and tenants beginning to move into the high-rise apartment complex, Nama and Fairax exited Capital Dock. A fund managed by the French insurance and financial services group Axa bought them out of a 50 per cent stake, and Kennedy Wilson acquired the rest of their investment to bring its own share from 42.5 to 50 per cent.

Fairfax reported a €53.6 million share of profit on the “sale of investment property in Dublin, Ireland” from a Kennedy Wilson joint venture in 2019. As Capital Dock was the only Fairfax divestment from a Kennedy Wilson joint venture reported that year, we can estimate from the Canadian firm’s 42.5 per cent stake that the office blocks occupied by Indeed and the residential portion of the project had returned a €126 million profit for its investors based on its valuation upon completion. This came to €53.6 million for each of Kennedy Wilson and Fairfax, and €18.9 million for Nama. 

For a while, Capital Dock’s expensive apartments were slow to find tenants and the project was criticised for hoarding accommodation as the housing crisis deepened. An online search in early March, however, returned only one apartment available to rent in the complex, a two-bed home for €3,580 per month.

Treasury Holdings’ Opera portfolio

Of the sprawling conglomerate amassed by Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett when the financial crisis hit, a group of 14 Dublin commercial properties was particularly tricky to unwind. The properties weren’t financed by individual bank loans. Instead, Treasury Holdings had raised bonds from capital markets to refinance their acquisition and development. They were issued by a vehicle called Opera Finance CMH in a round closed in 2006. 

When the bonds’ maturity date fell in January 2013 amid the property crash, with an outstanding principal balance of €368 million, there were no bank-appointed receivers or Nama to go after the collateral. Instead, the bondholders themselves had to agree on a process to recover as much of their capital as possible.

It took the first half of that year before Opera Finance CMH reported to the market: “On July 22 the Joint Receivers (E&Y) completed the sale of the properties to Kennedy Wilson and Värde. On the same date, enforcement proceeds of €300.7 million were applied toward the repayment of the loans and deposited in the issuer’s principal account.” The deal allowed Opera’s bondholders to recoup the vast majority of their investment.

Two days later, Kennedy Wilson confirmed that it had formed a consortium to acquire the Opera properties for €306 million. Along with another US investment firm, Värde, they each put up €60 million in equity, backed by Bank of Ireland who financed the rest with nearly €200 million in debt.

After one year, they transferred the entire Opera portfolio to Kennedy Wilson Europe Real Estate (KWE), the newly-listed subsidiary of the US firm focusing on investments this side of the Atlantic. A fresh valuation by CBRE in 2014 determined the €390 million price for that transaction. The €84 million gross gain was equivalent to a 70 per cent return on Värde’s share on exit, minus any interest paid to Bank of Ireland during that year.

Each of the 14 investment properties tells its own story.

M&S, Merchants Quay, Cork

The store leased to Marks & Spencer in Cork’s Merchants Quay shopping centre was valued at €31.2 million in 2014. In late 2017, the German property investment firm Real IS bought it from Kennedy Wilson. Savills reported its price to have remained virtually unchanged at €31 million. 

Charlemont House

This 9,300 sq ft office building in Dublin’s south city centre was valued at €3.8 million in 2014.

Kennedy Wilson later sold Charlemont House to MKN in the third quarter of 2021. According to estate agents Knight Frank, the McKeon family’s property business paid a price of €6.9 million.

41 St Stephen's Green

The Georgian building at 41, St Stephen’s Green used to operate as an old-style private members’ club and restaurant. KWE acquired the freehold property at a 2014 valuation of €3.2 million. The Press Up hospitality group acquired the club’s lease in early 2018 and refurbished it as the Grayson pub and restaurant in August 2018.

While Kennedy Wilson was still the registered owner at the time Press Up applied for planning permission, The Currency understands it has since sold the underlying property as well.

Baggot Plaza

When KWE acquired the Baggot Building, its three office blocks stretching from Baggot Street to Fleming Place extended to 91,636 sq ft and seven floors. The 1970s development was showing its age and its new owner declared it “functionally obsolete”. Its valuation in 2014 was €27 million, the lowest per square foot in the Opera portfolio.

Planning permission obtained by Treasury Holdings envisaged its demolition and rebuild. Having ended its short-term lets, Kennedy Wilson re-applied for a deep refurbishment project instead and engaged Sisk to strip the building to a bare shell, rebuild the façades and fit-out, and add nearly 40,000 sq ft of extensions.

While works were under way in 2015, Bank of Ireland pre-agreed a 25-year lease to move its new headquarters to the rebranded Baggot Plaza. This was confirmed upon completion the following year, for an annual rent of €6.1 million. 

Kennedy Wilson sold the fully-let complex to the German property fund manager Deka Immobilien in 2020 for €141 million, reporting a “gain on sale of approximately $85 million”. After the deduction of acquisition costs, this leaves around €40 million attributable to redevelopment costs.

South Bank House and the Warehouse

The modern, 62,100 sq ft office building known as South Bank House and the 19,500 sq ft converted 19th-century warehouse at the back, simply called The Warehouse, sit on Dublin’s Barrow St next to Google’s new Boland’s Mills headquarters.

They have been leased to the law firm Mason Hayes and Curran since their completion in 2006. CBRE valued South Bank House at €49.4 million and The Warehouse at €9 million in 2014. Two years later, KWE reported that South Bank House was yielding 4.5 per cent.

Google acquired the lot in December 2018 for an undisclosed price, which The Sunday Times estimated at the time to have been up to €90 million.

Four Dublin retail units

The Opera portfolio came with four city-centre shops occupied by steady tenants: Three at 35 Henry St, valued at €6.6 million in 2014; KFC at 16 Westmoreland St valued at €3.5 million; Costa Coffee at 3 College Green with a €2 million valuation; and Paddy Power’s Temple Bar betting shop at 18 Fleet St, which was valued at €1 million.

These were not Kennedy Wilson’s typical target investments and KWE disposed of them as soon as the market picked up. Agents Savills advertised them in September 2016 at guide prices close to their acquisition cost, except Three on Henry St, for which they sought a €1.6 million premium. They had a total annual rent roll of over €800,000 at the time.

The four retail units sold in the following years, with Friends First acquiring the higher-value Three store in 2019.

Crescent Hall

Crescent Hall, a mock Georgian office block facing Dublin’s Pepper Canister Church, was valued at €2.9 million when Kennedy Wilson Europe acquired it in 2014.

Three years later, the listed vehicle sold it for an undisclosed sum to Purple Lighthouse Unltd, a company controlled by the Cork food entrepreneurs Cullen Allen and Anne Fitzgerald, best known for the Cully & Sully soup brand.

Stillorgan Shopping Centre

The largest property by size in the Opera portfolio was the Stillorgan shopping centre, a 145,000 sq ft complex bringing in €5.6 million in annual rents. The 2014 valuation put a €84.2 million price tag on it.

KWE invested in the 1966-built building in 2016 and 2017 to give it a facelift and extend anchor Tesco’s store by 11,000 sq ft, which resulted in a 15 per cent increase in the supermarket’s rent. 

Russell Court

The 1982-built, 140,000 sq ft Russell Court office complex occupied by KPMG’s Irish head office, as well as Finland’s embassy and smaller tenants, is also known as Stoke’s Place. Located on the corner of Harcourt St and St Stephen’s Green, it had a rent roll of just under €5 million and was valued at €76.7 million in 2014.

The leases signed in 2013 will end on February 1, 2026 and Kennedy Wilson has been preparing well in advance to redevelop the site at that point. In early 2021, the US firm applied for planning permission to demolish the entire complex and triple its size with two new blocks totalling 430,000 sq ft in gradients of four to eight stories.

A shop or restaurant is planned on Harcourt St. Although the redevelopment will have space for between 3,000 and 4,000 workers, its design illustrates new commuting habits with just 70 car parking spaces and 600 bicycle spaces.

Unusually, the application was for planning permission with a life of seven years, covering the period until the end of existing leases. 

Inevitably, when developing in Dublin’s core business district, Kennedy Wilson’s application attracted objections from other corporate heavyweights. A property fund managed by Davy complained of the light and overbearing impact on its adjacent commercial buildings, as did the law firm Byrne Wallace in relation to its head office on Harcourt St.

The Grant Thornton receiver of the site’s immediate neighbour worried that Kennedy Wilson’s plan might block future owners from launching their own lucrative redevelopment. The residents of apartments in the Russell Court residential complex, not owned by Kennedy Wilson, meanwhile, had concerns about the noise and daylight impact of the project.

Dublin City Council initially granted planning permission on the condition that Kennedy Wilson omits the top floor on one of the new buildings. Residents and Davy appealed the decision on the basis that the permitted development was too tall, and Kennedy Wilson because it was not tall enough.

On January 20 of this year, the US firm won the case. Within days, Land Registry records showed that it was also a party involved in the sale of apartments in the neighbouring residential complex, including one co-owned by Olive English, who had taken her objections to An Bord Pleanála.

The board ruled that removing the contested floor “would not be warranted” by its impact on neighbours and granted permission for the entire project for seven years as requested. Kennedy Wilson is now cleared to demolish Russell Court after KPMG moves out in 2026.

40-42 Mespil Road

The 120,000 sq ft office block at 40-42 Mespil Road, facing Dublin’s Grand Canal, was completed in 2003 by Treasury Holdings and immediately leased in its entirety to Bank of Ireland for 25 years, with no break clause. The bank was paying an annual rent of €4.5 million in 2014.

At €89.5 million, it was the most valuable property in the Opera portfolio in 2014. In 2017, Kennedy Wilson pledged the property as part of the firm's €284 million refinancing deal with its very tenant, Bank of Ireland.

Shelbourne Hotel and 20 Kildare St

In 2004, property developers John Sweeney, Bernard Doyle, Bernard McNamara, Jerry O’Reilly and the late David Courtney bought the 1824 five-star Shelbourne Hotel and borrowed from Bank of Ireland and Anglo Irish Bank to embark on an expensive renovation plan.

A decade later, the companies they had formed to own and refurbish the Shelbourne owed the banks over €230 million. In the depressed post-financial crash hotel market, however, its book value had shrunk to €87 million. Behind the scenes, the lenders were looking for an exit. 

On January 21, 2014 they made a deal with Kennedy Wilson. The US investor paid €111 million for the Shelbourne’s entire bank debt, leaving Bank of Ireland and IBRC to nurse a loss of more than 50 per cent. Kennedy Wilson reported putting €51 million in equity into the acquisition and borrowing the remaining €60 million.

Within months, receivers appointed by the new owner of the secured debt had converted the loans to direct ownership of the property. Kennedy Wilson later launched its own refurbishment programme in 2016 justified by the recovery in the luxury hotel industry, with a 12 per cent increase in revenue at the Shelbourne that year.

Over four years, the firm spent more than €48 million on a staggered programme to renovate, in turn, the façade, suites, lobbies, main staircase and bars and restaurants – all while keeping the Shelbourne open. Once the works were complete, Covid-19 lockdowns caused a 63 per cent slump in revenue at the hotel in 2020, which only partly recovered the following year.

Across the street, the Shelbourne’s old garage was also among the assets pledged by the hotel’s owners when they borrowed from the banks. Kennedy Wilson staff discovered they owned the site when they leafed through the acquisition’s paperwork. 

The listed Georgian building at 20 Kildare St had been butchered with a car passage on the ground floor to let vehicles access the yard at the back, while other parts of the premises were formerly leased to businesses that had left over the years.

Following its acquisition, Kennedy Wilson added adjoining properties to assemble a high-powered development site. As part of its wider participation in the carve-out of Treasury Holdings, the US investor bought a connecting backyard off St Stephen’s Green from a subsidiary of Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett’s group, where receivers recorded €350,000 in proceeds from the sale in March 2015.

Down Kildare St, Kennedy Wilson completed the extension of the site all the way to the block of Government departments facing Leinster House with the 2017 purchase of No22. With this done, the new owner applied for planning permission to redevelop the property as a 65,000 sq ft office complex in three- to seven-storey blocks while retaining the protected Georgian fronts of the original buildings. 

It was a delicate job. The central former Shelbourne garage was “supported by a maze of props and ties inserted in 2016 to prevent a potential collapse” with water ingress, decayed timber and detached plasterwork completing the picture, architects reported.

Although the large-scale development at the back is barely visible from the street, walk through the former car passage carved out of the Georgian façade, now a reception area, and you will find a glass atrium connecting the historic buildings at the front to the modern multi-storey office block behind them.

Kennedy Wilson engaged John Paul Construction to carry out the works, which started in late 2019. From a budget of €46.8 million at the planning stage, the total cost of the development, including land, increased to €55.4 million in the final figures reported prior to completion, which was achieved mid-2022. Letting agents Knight Frank reported that law firm Dentons, aircraft leasing firm Aircastle and investment firm Davidson Kempner had together pre-let three quarters of the office space.

Leases declared to the Property Price Register up to the announcement totalled annual rents of €3.1 million. Should the rest of the building find tenants at similar rates, a €4 million rent roll would generate a yield of 7.2 per cent on the property’s development costs as reported by Kennedy Wilson.

Charges on the property, simply branded as 20 Kildare St, show that Kennedy Wilson refinanced it with US bank Wells Fargo in 2020 and was in the process of recording obligations towards AIB at the time of completion last year.

Portmarnock Hotel

Among the loans originated by AIB to the Capel group of companies controlled by developers Liam Kelly, John O’Connor and Edward Keegan, receivers appointed by Nama found themselves in control of the Portmarnock hotel and golf resort on Dublin’s north coast. In July 2014, they sold the property to KWE for €29.8 million in an all-cash transaction.

The new owner brought all operations in house and spent €9.8 million refurbishing 90 of the hotel’s 135 bedrooms as well as its common areas. It reported a 57 per cent increase in hospitality revenue in the process, no doubt helped by the recovery in the economy over the intervening two years. The 18-hole golf links were next. Their upgrade translated into a 20 per cent increase in green fee rates and, by the time agents JLL put the Portmarnock resort on the market in 2019, had brought total reported refurbishment costs to €11 million.

In October 2019, the Sandman hotel group of Canadian firm Northland Properties bought the complex for €48.6 million, leaving Kennedy Wilson with a gross gain of €7.8 million over acquisition and refurbishment costs. 

The Elliott portfolio

In July 2014, Kennedy Wilson Europe announced the acquisition of UIster Bank debt secured on the assets of developer Mark Elliott, a member of the Cavan family behind the P Elliott historic construction business. At the time, he owed the bank €202.3 million. KWE snapped up the loans for €75 million.

The debt was secured on 17 properties, most of them small, but three prized assets accounted for 90 per cent of the portfolio's value: the former Irish Times building on Dublin’s D’Olier St; the Lakelands retail park in Cavan; and 136 apartments in block B and C of the Herberton rental complex in Dublin 8, a legacy of Elliott’s participation in the public-private partnership to redevelop the Fatima Mansions social housing estate.

KWE reported converting the collateral of the Times building and Lakeland retail park to direct ownership in 2015, and increasing revenue at the commercial properties through “improved leasing”. Both were sold the following year ahead of the European vehicle’s de-listing, with €78.5 million realised for Kennedy Wilson by the end of 2016.

This left Herberton, which Dublin City Council purchased in August 2020 for €32 million as detailed in Part 1. 

This brought the total proceeds from sales of Elliott properties to more than €110 million – a €35 million gross gain on the price Kennedy Wilson had paid for the loans.

Marshes Shopping Centre

In 2014, a portfolio of shopping centres north and south of the border was put on the market by companies linked to two families: that of former UTV chairman John B McGuckian and the Cheevers behind the Belfast-based construction firm McLaughlin and Harvey.

Although this was not an enforced sale, the Abbey Centre group was under pressure, with £248 million in Ulster Bank loans secured on the shopping centres, whose value had dipped below £200 million as a result of the property crash. In breach of their debt covenants, the owners of Abbey Centre group opted for an orderly sell-off before the bank called in their loans.

The Marshes Shopping Centre in Dundalk, Co Louth was the only asset they had for sale in the Republic. Kennedy Wilson’s new London-listed subsidiary Kennedy Wilson Europe Real Estate acquired it for €44.5 million, a discount of €3.5 million on the book value previously reported by its sellers. Later in 2014, Kennedy Wilson included Marshes in a portfolio of properties refinanced by Bank of Ireland.

The shopping centre’s 39 units and food court, over 273,100 sq ft, were anchored by Dunnes Stores but had some vacancies. At a 7.2 per cent initial net yield, it was the second-most profitable property among the initial blitz of acquisitions conducted by KWE. Marshes also came with land available for future development. The following year, the shopping centre attracted H&M to an enlarged store on the property, as well as Flying Tiger to a smaller unit. 

Kennedy Wilson put the Marshes Shopping Centre on the market last year, with agents Bannon guiding €33.5 million. The Irish Times reported in November that a unit of Davy was offering €30 million for the property, but no sale has been confirmed yet.

Gardner House

On November 19, 2014, Kennedy Wilson Europe paid €45 million for two non-performing mortgages secured on Gardner House. The 75,600 sq ft office block at Wilton Place, facing Dublin’s Grand Canal, had been refurbished internally in 2010 and came with planning permission for a 42,000 sq ft extension.

The loans had an outstanding balance of €74.8 million and were part of the boom-time debt mountain accumulated by businessmen brothers Colum and Ciaran Butler, then owners of the building. The Butlers had bought Gardner House from Iput for over €82 million in 2006.

On February 11, 2015, KWE secured possession of the property. “The acquisition of the underlying real estate was transacted through a cashless acquisition of the property following the consensual resolution of the non-performing loan (NPL) investment with the underlying borrower,” the firm reported at the time.

Gardner House was then fully leased to PwC, which had already moved to its new Dublin office at Spencer Dock and sub-let the space to LinkedIn as an extension of its European headquarters next door. The annual rent of €3.1 million was yielding 6.9 per cent for the new landlord.

Rather than bringing Gardner House into direct Kennedy Wilson ownership on the occasion of the absorption of KWE in 2017, the US firm sold it off to Iput for €63 million. The Irish-listed developer was back in possession of the building it had sold a decade earlier – only €20 million richer. KWE, too, made a gross gain of €18 million on the property.

Iput has since demolished Gardner House to incorporate it into its Wilton Place office development including additional space for LinkedIn.

Beaver House

The 29,000 sq ft Beaver House office block in Clonskeagh’s Beech Hill business park near UCD was a small but high-return play for Kennedy Wilson.

The US investor acquired it partly leased in a bank-driven sale in 2015, when agent HWBC guided €5.5 million. Kennedy Wilson Europe refurbished the vacant space and attracted additional tenants.

Within three years, it sold on the fully-let building to a fund managed by Appian Investments, now Gresham House. In the intervening time, the guide price had risen by more than €3 million.

Block C, Dundrum Business Park

Ulster Bank’s own property holding unit put block C of Dundrum Business Park on the market for €5.75 million in 2015. Kennedy Wilson Europe later reported being the new owner of the property leased to BT.

After absorbing the portfolio of its European subsidiary, Kennedy Wilson disposed of the 24,000 sq ft office block in a private sale in 2018. By that date, its asking price had increased to €8.75 million.

14-15 and 16 Sir John Rogerson's Quay

Throughout the Celtic Tiger years, the converted Columbia Mills at 14-15 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay acted as the registered address of OMS Architects. Land registry records show that the firm’s eponymous founders Toal O’Muire and John Smyth also owned the leasehold on the modern office block at No16 next door.

In November 2015, however, Kennedy Wilson Europe announced that it had bought the two properties from Nama for €11.8 million. Just like Schoolhouse Lane, also purchased by the US investor in Dublin 2, they were part of the state bad bank’s Project Liffey portfolio.

Each building was just under 10,000 sq ft in size. No16 was a recent build and has been occupied on a regular basis since then. No14-15, meanwhile, was ripe for redevelopment behind the protected Columbia Mills’ historic façade.

This was what first attracted Clontarf-based developer MKN. The McKeon family’s firm bought the vacant former mills in 2018 and its vehicle for the acquisition booked a €6.2 million value for the property that year. It later secured planning permission in 2021 to add five stories on top of the existing building.

Then in 2020, MKN  also bought No16 next door through the same company, which booked a €10.1 million new asset on that occasion.

The combined €16.3 million investment by MKN delivered a gross gain of over €5 million for Kennedy Wilson.

5 Schoolhouse Lane

The most visible feature of architect Jerry Ryan’s downfall amid the property crash was the closure of the Dublin office of the firm he had founded. At the height of the boom, HKR had designed its the high-spec office block at 5, Schoolhouse Lane, between Kildare St and Molesworth St. The 13,300 sq ft building acted both as the firm’s headquarters and as a showcase of its capabilities. 

In 2011 and 2012, it became clear that Ryan was overleveraged and his multiple Irish companies began to close down or enter lengthy insolvency procedures. Nama took over the debt they had contracted from Anglo Irish Bank and sent in receivers.

By early 2016, the Schoolhouse Lane property had emerged on Kennedy Wilson Europe’s books. KWE reported buying it from Nama for €9.8 million and immediately applied for planning permission to extend it to 16,000 sq ft. 

While it initially lined up the building for a lease, a much better sale opportunity presented itself. Through an Irish subsidiary, the UK co-working firm Us&Co reported acquiring 5 Schoolhouse Lane for €19.4 million in 2018, allowing Kennedy Wilson to double its money on the property, extension costs included. 

Us&Co had clearly overpaid and, within months, it booked a €2.9 million impairment following an independent valuation by Savills, the very agents who had put the property on the market for Kennedy Wilson. 

Although Us&Co’s Irish unit later reversed part of the write-down and started to generate profit from 2020, it was still sitting on €1.9 million in accumulated losses at the end of 2021 and faced heavy debt.

The British group has since sold its Dublin subsidiary and property at a reported loss of £1.3 million to former Beauparc owners Eamon and Robert Waters, who took control last July. The Waters are still operating the building as a co-working space under their own brand, Viridis, which is run out of their family office firm Sretaw.

The Chase

In October 2012, Nama secured a High Court judgement for €90.4 million against developers Reginald Tuthill and Derek O’Leary and several of their companies after taking over their AIB debt and triggering multiple receiverships. This was just the beginning of a battle to recover assets over several years.

One of the many properties they had developed in Sandyford was the former McCambridge bakery and warehouse site on Arkle Road, a section of which they had turned into an eight-story, 173,000 sq ft office block branded as The Chase.

The building was owned by a fund bringing together Tuthill, O’Leary and other investors, The Chase Arkle PLC, which was not itself insolvent. It was, however, indebted to AIB with loans falling due in 2017 and caught in the crossfire between the bank and the developers. Meanwhile, planning records show that the developer of the project was Sandyford Forum Developments Ltd, one of Tuthill and O’Leary’s companies targeted by Nama.

In the series of ensuing fire sales, Kennedy Wilson Europe bought The Chase for €62.5 million in May 2016.

When KWE got the keys to the building, only two thirds of it were occupied. Its rent roll was under €2.5 million, yielding a paltry 3.8 per cent upon acquisition. The new owner quickly remedied the situation by completing a partial fit-out of the vacant space, followed by a refurbishment of the reception and common areas in 2017 that “dramatically improved the arrival experience to the building”, according to a KWE filing.

In February 2018, this attracted Google to The Chase. The digital giant leased the remaining 53,000 sq ft for 15 years at an annual rent of €1.5 million. At over €28 per sq ft, the Google lease returned double the average rent reported when KWE had acquired the building two years earlier. Other multinational tenants at the time included the commercial information firm Dun & Bradstreet and the food group Mars.

In 2020, specialist media floated a €80 million asking price for a potential sale of The Chase, but no transaction has taken place since.

Blackrock Business Park

The Kilberry group of companies controlled by James Flynn and Edward Brady completed the development of Blackrock Business Park in south Co Dublin at the very end of the property boom, adding blocks 3, 4 and 5 in 2007. They refinanced part of the leased office property with Ulster Bank in 2008, records show.

In May 2016, however, Kennedy Wilson Europe announced that it was taking possession of the three most recent, higher-end blocks of the campus “for €14.4 million from Hudson Advisors which took control of the properties in 2014 via a loan acquisition”. Hudson was the asset management affiliate used by US vulture fund Lone Star to handle distressed debt deals.

The multi-storey property totalled 50,500 sq ft and yielded 6.8 per cent at the time, suggesting a rent roll of just under €1 million. KWE quickly improved that by reviewing rents upwards. That same year, the new owner reported a 16 per cent increase in the rent paid by blue-chip tenant Ipsos MRBI.

In 2017, Kennedy Wilson obtained planning permission to add an additional 4.600 sq ft floor on top of block 3, but did not build out the extension itself. Instead, the US firm put the property on the market.

In October 2018, Savills advertised the three office blocks for sale at a guide price of €17 million. Their passing rent had grown to €1.12 million and occupiers at the time included Lobo Leasing, the HRBR hair restoration clinic, Fincad and Kobo Software. The property, however, failed to find a buyer and remained on Kennedy Wilson’s books at the end of 2022.

Hanover Quay

The three-gabled series of protected red brick warehouses at the tip of Dublin’s Hanover Quay, where the three locks connect Grand Canal Dock to the Liffey, were the last to be redeveloped in the area.

Planning permission for a boom-time apartment block secured by Dublin entrepreneur Des Rogers lapsed before a shovel hit the ground. The idea of media and design studios, around the existing practice of NBK Architects in part of the building, emerged in 2013 draft documents from the Docklands Development Authority but was equally unsuccessful.

In the end, the property ended up in the hands of Nama, which contributed it to a joint-venture fund where Kennedy Wilson took a 60 per cent interest in 2017. The model was similar to the one they had adopted for the adjacent Capital Dock site five years earlier. Initial costings in Kennedy Wilson’s accounts valued the bare site at around €11.6 million.

In 2018, they secured planning permission for the restoration of the 1800-era buildings into 69,000 sq ft of modern office space, including a glass and steel extension designed by Mola Architecture and towering above the back of the warehouses.

As contractors led by Sisk tackled construction, Wells Fargo applied to register a charge on the property in 2019, suggesting the US bank provided finance for the project. Development costs reported by Kennedy Wilson came to €47.4 million. AIB followed suit upon completion early last year.

Shortly afterwards, in April 2022, the owner announced that the building was fully let. It is currently occupied by the US fintech company Fiserv and its joint venture with AIB, Merchant Services. The 15-year lease has an initial rent of €4 million, returning a yield of over 6 per cent on the total €60 million investment in 10 Hanover Quay.

Previous experience shows that the next step will likely be for a long-term investor to come in and buy Nama out of its share in the stabilised property. 

94 St Stephen’s Green

In 2017, the Department of Justice was preparing to leave the former Methodist church at 94, St Stephen’s Green, which it had been occupying since its conversion to offices after a fire in 1968. Civil servants were to move across the green to a state-owned building by the end of the €1 million-a-year lease expiring on No 94 in 2018. 

For the property’s owner, SW3 Capital, it was a good time to cash out, having bought it in the trough of the crash just a few years earlier. Savills guided €20 million mid-2017 for the office block fronted by its 1840s neoclassical portico and an adjoining residential townhouse, totalling over 22,000 sq ft. 

Kennedy Wilson acquired it in its only Irish transaction to date that did not apparently involve a distressed asset. The US firm already owned the Russell Court complex next door and the deal increased its continuous footprint on the corner of Harcourt St and St Stephen’s Green.

Rather than combining the two into a wider investment property, however, Kennedy Wilson contracted architects Henry J Lyons to refurbish No 94 as its own Irish headquarters. The 17,000 sq ft commercial property received a new, grander entrance with a light-filled atrium while the 1970s offices at the back are now internally clad in a modern palette of grey materials.

Once these works were completed in 2020, Kennedy Wilson tackled the renovation of the residential wing, refurbishing its four apartments to luxury standards and adding a new glazed entrance at the back of the building. This final phase, led by Shay Cleary Architects, was finished by the end of 2021 and won a conservation award last year.

Coopers Cross

Kennedy Wilson had made its first Irish deal in 2012 from a receiver tasked with dispersing the empire of developer Liam Carroll. History repeated itself in 2018 when a similar source presented the US investor with its last Dublin acquisition to date.

In 2012, Nama had appointed David Carson of Deloitte to unwind multiple loans secured on development sites in the north Docklands special development zone. The receiver actively managed the properties in the following years, ordering demolitions and pushing them through the planning process. 

In 2018, Nama was still sitting on the last site, a 5.91-acre parcel codenamed City Block 3 located between Sheriff St and the Luas red line on Mayor St, just behind what is now the Central Bank. Agents Cushman & Wakefield and Savills then put it on the market in two lots. Bidders had a choice between the residential portion of the site, with planning permission for 347 apartments at a guide price of €45 million, or the €65 million commercial section with more than 330,000 sq ft of office and retail space permitted.

Kennedy Wilson announced on October 3, 2018 that it had bought both for €113 million. 

The US firm did not go it alone. While it did invest €68 million of its own equity, it had brought along two 50-50 joint venture partners. Axa took a 50 per cent interest in the residential section of City Block 3, while US property investment firm Cain International took up half of the office project.

Cain is a subsidiary of Eldridge Industries, the investment firm of US financier Todd Boehly, which has since made a $300 million direct investment in Kennedy Wilson in 2019.

Over the following two years, the new owners and their architects went back and forth with Dublin City Council to secure new planning permission for an expanded scheme of 472 apartments, 395,000 sq ft of commercial space, a creche and a public park. The buildings, in seven blocks, range from two to seven stories. Most of the apartments are one-and two-bedroom homes and intended for the rental market.

In the final weeks of 2020, Land Registry records show that CBRE Loan Services applied to have a charge registered on the residential portion of the site and Allied World Insurance Company on the commercial section. This suggests that the developers raised construction finance from the New York-listed property firm and from the insurance company, which is owned by Kennedy Wilson’s early co-investor in Ireland, the Canadian investment firm Fairfax.

With this in place, Kennedy Wilson picked Sisk as the main construction contractor at the end of 2020 and workers hit the site the following year. The project is scheduled for completion this year under the Coopers Cross brand. Its owners have recently estimated total development costs, including land, at more than €625 million, €344 million for the office blocks and €282 million for the apartments.

Last-mile logistics the next frontier

At the end of 2020, Kennedy Wilson and GIC launched a new joint venture in which the US firm owns a 20 per cent stake and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund 80 per cent. The deal was to invest in “last-mile urban distribution centres” in Europe, starting with a $220 million portfolio of 18 such warehouses Kennedy Wilson had just acquired in the UK.

GIC was already familiar with Irish property. Its Vestry fund, managed by Dublin firm BEO Capital, owns hundreds of homes in this country.

The two partners spent another billion dollars in the following year “to acquire and manage urban logistics properties in the UK, with the potential to expand into Ireland and Spain”. This may include some of the warehouses in the international Exeter portfolio acquired by a GIC-led consortium in November 2021, including some in Ireland.

They then doubled their ambition to invest a total of $2.5 billion in similar assets and, by the end of 2022, owned 109 logistics properties in Europe and had another $1.3 billion to spend on acquiring more. Some 17 of those were in Ireland, totalling 600,000 sq ft and a net operating income of €4.8 million.

Kennedy Wilson does not report details of this investment because it holds a minority stake in the joint venture, and GIC does not either as a privately-held Singaporean semi-state. The US firm no longer names GIC in its reporting, simply referring to “partners,” which suggests other investors may have joined its logistics platform. Kennedy Wilson declined to provide further details on its co-investors in this sector.

The only Land Registry record to date of Kennedy Wilson activity at a logistics property was its involvement in a sale at Unit 1, Northern Cross Business Park off Dublin’s M50 in November 2021.

Further reading – Inside Kennedy Wilson

Part 1: How a US investor pioneered the institutional landlord model in Ireland

Stay tuned for Part 3 discussing Kennedy Wilson’s strategy here with its top Irish executive Peter Collins