John Fraher is slim, wiry and has the muscular physique of a cyclist. He speaks quietly and intensely. A self-made millionaire, Fraher has never given an interview before. Indeed, he has never spoken to a journalist before.

At this stage however, Fraher feels he has nothing to lose by telling his story, although he does decline a request to be photographed.

And what a story: a story of a man undone by a system designed to save the economy.

Fraher was once one of the richest men in Tipperary. He had stakes in retail parks worth tens of millions of euro, co-ownership of a hotel, a thriving consumer electronics business, investment properties and land banks. He was an entirely self-made millionaire many times over.

About nine years ago things changed for Fraher when he became connection number ‘0872’ inside the state’s bad bank: the National Asset Management Agency (Nama). Fraher would later realise he was not the only member of ‘0872’. By then it was too late however.

Number ‘0872’  also included more than half a dozen other businessmen from Tipperary and its environs.

Some of these businessmen were partners of Fraher in various deals; others were unknown to him.

As Nama worked its way through the banks it was lumping borrowers together. Borrower A might have taken out a loan with borrower B, while separately borrower B might have a loan with C.

A could be strong, B might be stressed, and C might be in deep trouble. A, B and C were now together reporting into the same Nama loan manager tasked with getting the most back from all.

This made sense for a country under huge financial stress, one that needed to move fast. Yet for some individual borrowers, this could mean they were treated in a way that they perceived as less than fair. 

In Fraher’s case the various individuals in ‘0872’ owed Nama cumulative debts of €145.4 million – either personally or through companies. Borrowings in Nama that had personal recourse to Fraher however totalled just €5 million. 

What happened to Fraher inside Nama partly dribbled out in the courts. An anonymous blog called Namawinelake highlighted one aspect of his financial affairs, provoking the state property behemoth to threaten legal proceedings.

In April 2013, local radio station Tipp FM reported that Fraher was on the verge of going bankrupt in Britain. Later he did, but reports of who he was, and what happened to him were sparse on detail.

It begs a question: just what happened to John Fraher?

The rise and rise of John Fraher

John Fraher was born in 1960 in Clonmel, Co Tipperary. From a modest background, he did his leaving certificate at 16 and got his first job in a television shop immediately afterwards. Fraher always wanted to work for himself. He was smart, and with a natural inclination for working out how things worked.

At 17, Fraher went out on his own repairing televisions and putting up aerials in people’s homes. Colour televisions were becoming the norm in Ireland so he was flat out. In the 1980s, when VHS video recorders came in, he began supplying video shops and vans with the latest movies. Eventually, he had enough money to open his own store in Clonmel called Classic Video.

It was heady days for the video trade, long before Netflix and streaming decimated the industry. Xtra-vision, the listed video chain, approached Fraher and his wife to buy the business.

“They wanted me to take shares but I just took the money,” Fraher tells me. “That gave us our first taste of good money.”

So, he did what a lot of Irish people did when they get some money: “I started dabbling in properties,”he said.

Fraher and his wife used their windfall to purchase a bigger shop called Slatterys, which sold electronic goods. “It was everything you could plug in,” Fraher explained. “We also had a business selling music and videos.”

The couple were now doing really well, working long hours and tapping into the surging demand for consumer goods as the economy took off.

So, he did what a lot of Irish people did when they get some money: “I started dabbling in properties,” he said.

Fraher started buying up residential houses in the Munster area. He was cautious – he kept his borrowings low, renting some properties out, flipping others.

“After that I started looking at sites. I could see the big picture that this was where it was going,” he said. “Back then I could always see the future vis-a-vis business.”

Fraher now employed dozens of people. He was churning out money. He decided to get into property development.

Developing a taste for development

In the late 1990s John Fraher met Jack Ronan. Ronan was involved in the animal by-products and piggery business. Later he would become involved in Vita Cortex, the foam manufacturer, which in 2012 was the subject of a bitter industrial sit-in over redundancy payments. Ronan’s extended family were also well-known names in Tipperary.

His brother was Louis Ronan, who controlled a successful veterinary pharmaceutical business called Enfer. Another brother, David, was involved in the pig business. The Ronan’s were a business family, who were all doing well.

Jack Ronan started to hang out with Fraher. “We were cycling together. We had kids the same age,” Fraher recalled.

Fraher had seen a site near Clonmel known locally as the ‘Doc O’Callaghan’ site, because of its association with Ireland’s first ever Olympic medal winner, the hammer thrower Dr Pat O’Callaghan. Fraher acquired the site for €500,000 in 1999 from the Rehab Group. He gave Jack Ronan a 50 per cent stake in it.

It took a few years of lobbying but eventually he convinced South Tipperary County Council to sell the site. 

“It was sort of a promise like ‘I will get the next one,’ but it didn’t transpire like that,” Fraher said. Later the business partners sold the site for €1.2 million to Aldi. It was not easy money but it was relative to the daily graft Fraher was used to.

“I was now looking at the bigger picture as in retail parks,” Fraher said. The concept of retail parks, combining big box branded stores with lots of car parking, was established around Dublin. Fraher reckoned it was time for one in Clonmel.

He identified a site called Poppyfield on the edge of Clonmel. It took a few years of lobbying but eventually he convinced South Tipperary County Council to sell the site. 

The Poppyfield retail park in Clonmel, which opened in 2004.

“It is probably one of the best retail parks outside Dublin. It was going to another level,” Fraher said.

Again, he teamed up again with Ronan. Ronan suggested bringing another prolific property investor called Richard Pratt into the deal. Fraher agreed, and ownership of the park was split between the three men, after they put up €1 million between them to buy it.

Fraher met with the Grafton Group and convinced it to sign a 25-year lease for a Woodies to anchor the new park. Supervalu, the retail chain owned by the Musgrave Group,  came next.

Fraher also opened his own electronics store on the site which later became a DID franchise. Long leases with good tenants convinced AIB to finance the retail park’s €11 million construction cost.

On February 27 2003, the three men signed up with AIB, and in 2004 Poppyfield retail park opened. It soon became a success generating rental income of €1.9 million annually. Fraher says his partners agreed to pay him €1 million if the park was ever sold. This was, according to  Fraher,  to reflect his efforts in securing such high quality tenants. With Poppyfield thriving, it was time to look for the next deal.

”It was going very well so we decided to build a hotel called the Clonmel Park,” Fraher said. The hotel, which adjoins the Poppyfield retail park, was built for €16.1 million and included 100 rooms and a leisure centre.

The Brennan Group, which then operated the Arklow Bay, the Springhill Court Hotel in Kilkenny and the Green Isle in Dublin, was retained to operate the Tipperary hotel. Led by Brian Brennan, the group were considered a good hotel operator and was also known for sponsoring Wicklow GAA.

In order to finance the construction of the hotel the three partners signed up the Brennan Group as operators. This gave their banks the confidence to back them.

Fraher said as a result he had no personal recourse on the hotel loan. Capital allowances, introduced by the government, made investing in the hotel even more attractive. The plan was for the Brennan Group to buy out the hotel with a put-and-call option down the road.

A long way from Tipperary

It was time for more. Fraher teamed up with Ronan and their company accountant called Stephen Napier to set up a company which borrowed €3.3 million in 2007 to buy land at Ticknock, Cobh, Co Cork. The plan was to build more retail warehousing as well as a garden centre.

Around the same time Fraher got involved in another company which borrowed €18 million to acquire land and develop a retail park called West City in Ballincollig in Co Cork. Fraher teamed up again with Ronan and Pratt, but this time added businessman Sean White to his group of investors.

Fraher, from having little borrowings, was now in deep through his various companies.

He had other business interests also, which were generating cash. He got involved in other trading retail businesses including one in Thomastown, Co Kilkenny and a fit-out business.

This latter business kitted out stores for other people who had Supervalu franchises and worked with Dairygold, which in 2006 announced plans to diversify from milk into home improvements by opening 30 stores under its 4Home DIY brand.

Fraher was involved in businesses that employed hundreds of people. He was now a multimillionaire, and being wooed by AIB private banking and other investment firms.

He got involved in property funds. Most of the time he invested only with cash generated from his trading businesses, and the managers of these funds took his cash and used it to borrow further. The most Fraher could lose was the money he put in.

“You work hard to get up to a certain level, and before you know it you are private client of your bank or one of the brokers. You are a target,” Fraher said.

His bank told him he could do even better if he borrowed the money instead. Everyone else was doing it, he was reassured. Only mugs paid for things in cash, when debt was available.

Fraher takes responsibility for making investment decisions, but says he believed, like so many others, he was making his money safer by diversifying.

Fraher was convinced to borrow €750,000 on one occasion. He had put €750,000 in cash into something called the Japanese Alpha Fund.

But his bank told him he could do even better if he borrowed the money instead. Everyone else was doing it, he was reassured. Only mugs paid for things in cash, when debt was available.

The plan was that dividends from the fund would pay off the €750,000 loan over time. In the event of a shortfall, the balance was to be paid from the borrower’s own cash. Just in case that failed the bank took a charge on a holiday home in Kerry which Fraher owned jointly with his wife. In effect, as it would turn out, this meant his wife was now in on the deal too.

Ireland was slowing, and the thinking was returns now lay further afield, in this case some 9,500 kilometres away in the Far East. By now, it was all a long way from Tipperary.

*****

John Fraher grew up convinced of the need to earn his own cash; now he was being taught about leverage. He felt, and was told, he could afford to take risks.

A refinancing of Poppyfield based on its rental income allowed its co-owners take a couple of million euro each off the table.

Fraher’s fortune was at its peak. Based on the hefty valuations of the Celtic Tiger period, his net worth was estimated at €50 million-plus.

Fraher won’t put a figure on it, but he readily agrees he was by any reckoning a multimillionaire.

“I was easily,” he said. “I had no (personal) borrowings. The family businesses were flying. Everything was going really strongly.”

*****

A new world order

In 2008, the world changed. A financial crash that started in the United States hit Europe. Irish banks were in serious trouble. Fraher’s primary banker, AIB, was in particular trouble. By September 2008, it was within months, even weeks, of running out of money. Ireland was forced to step in and guarantee its banks. Decisions were made in a panic, amid a vortex of pressure.

Fraher could see what was happening. He knew that Jack Ronan had other property investments that he was not involved in, and feared they could get into trouble. To protect himself, Fraher wanted out of property development. He knew how to handle cash businesses, and wanted to focus on them alone. A deal was drawn up.

“Timing really fucked me up. Ronan had agreed. I was moving on – but it didn’t happen.”

John Fraher

On December 17, 2009 Fraher and Ronan signed an agreement to end their partnership. “Ronan and myself had agreed to part ways,” Fraher explained adding:. “I was going to take the retail businesses. He was taking over the land banks.”

The one-page deal would see Fraher take control of the various retail companies in Clonmel and Thomastown while Ronan took on various lands and buildings including the site in Cobh.

It was not to be entirely a clean break. They would continue to be partners in their prime assets of Poppyfield retail park and the Clonmel Park hotel. “Rent was coming in on the retail park and the hotel. There were no problems there,” Fraher said.

If the 2009 deal had happened Fraher would have been in a strong position. But it never happened. The economy continued to worsen and the deal never closed.

“Timing really fucked me up. Ronan had agreed. I was moving on – but it didn’t happen.”

Instead Nama was coming.

Welcome to Nama

A sculpture on the wall of the Treasury Building in Dublin.

Having tied Ireland to its banks through the bank guarantee, the government decided to set up Nama. Done in a hurry, Nama was told to clean-up the banks by taking their vast exposures to property off their balance sheets.

Nama’s task was to get as much money back as possible by whatever means necessary. For the thousands of people, mainly men, who ended up in its grip, tough times beckoned.

Public support for going hard against developers was immense at the time, even if not all were bad. There was little room for sympathy, as budget after budget reduced state spending and imposed savage austerity.

At this point in our interview, Fraher reached into his satchel and pulls out a list of his personal and company borrowings to Nama.

When he read about Nama, Fraher did not expect to end up within its grasp. He felt he was a retailer and a hotel co-owner, with relatively very little exposure to property development.

“I didn’t realise I was going into Nama until 2010 when I got a letter. I went into Nama because of the debt levels of my partners,” Fraher said.

For a long time, Fraher had no idea of the extent of the exposures of the people and companies he was in Nama with as part of connection ‘0872’.

Eventually, he found out to his shock that this connection had a €145.4 million total exposure. This included him and his business partners, but also people he barely knew, or had never even heard of.

At this point in our interview, Fraher reached into his satchel and pulls out a list of his personal and company borrowings to Nama.

In total the various companies he had a stake in owed Nama €76.8 million. However, just €5.4 million of this was recourse to Fraher personally. Some of this money was owed jointly and severally with others.  There was also another €5 million owed to Ulster Bank, which related to other business dealings.

Fraher felt his challenge was to repay the €5.4 million required to get himself out of Nama.  Fraher decided he would assist Nama in whatever way he could in relation to the much larger company debts he was involved in, but that was it. It would not be easy, but he thought it was doable.

Fighting a war

John Fraher was determined to get out of Nama, and move on. He set up a retail consultancy which advised the Musgrave Group in relation to its then British retail business Budgens, and he also worked with a British electronics chain. “I was doing quite well off it. But in the meantime I was fighting a war with Nama,” Fraher said.

In total Fraher offered Nama assets worth €1.6 million. Fraher felt his retail businesses remained valuable as they were throwing off significant rents,

On July 2, 2012 Fraher wrote to Nama to try and do a deal to secure his exit. He said he would cooperate with it, and pay it monies to offset against his debts. It was a detailed offer set out over several pages.

Fraher said he would support the appointment of a receiver to Poppyfield retail park, Clonmel Park Hotel, West City retail park in Ballincollig and the Cobh lands in Cork.

He said he believed that he was owed significant rents from various businesses and that there was rent collected in company accounts he was prepared to give up any right to, which added up to €600,000.

He said he would give Nama an unencumbered property he owned in Cork worth €120,000, another site worth €200,000 as well as his stake in the Japanese fund, which was then worth €680,000 and due to be worth €750,000 on maturity.

In total Fraher offered Nama assets worth €1.6 million. Fraher felt his retail businesses remained valuable as they were throwing off significant rents, and the hotel was also generating income. “A lot of things were paying their way,” he said.

“The recourse was €5 million. It was very little. Of that original €5 million, about €2.1 million is still with Nama,” he said. Fraher said most of the loans that were recourse to him were owed jointly and severally by him with others.

He felt he could pay off his portion, but this required others to do the same. They were either unable, or not prepared to do so, meaning he would have to clear everything to get out.  

“I could only deal with what I owed myself,” Fraher said.

Nama, was not prepared to agree to the deal. “They turned me down.”

Fraher was at that stage living in Britain for close to seven months. Around the time of his offer to Nama being made, he became aware that new accounts had been set up to collect rents from the retail parks.

In April 2013, Nama secured a judgement of €5 million against Fraher in the High Court. At the time of this judgement Fraher claimed in an affidavit that Nama had sent details of his loans and others in the 0872 connection by mistake to his financial advisors.

Fraher was furious and made a complaint to the Gardai Fraud Squad. A bitter row ensued, but it made little difference. Nama has extraordinary powers, and there was no finding of it acting beyond them. It was doing, what it felt it had to. Not just to Fraher, but to thousands of people, who were somehow caught up with it.

For Fraher however he was now on his way to being pushed out of the retail parks.

In April 2013, Nama secured a judgement of €5 million against Fraher in the High Court. At the time of this judgement Fraher claimed in an affidavit that Nama had sent details of his loans and others in the 0872 connection by mistake to his financial advisors.

“As is apparent from the listing, Connection 0872 includes individuals and entities with which I have no connection whatsoever and with whom I have no joint or several liability to Nama,” Fraher said in his affidavit, later opened in court.

An anonymous blog called Namawinelake then published these details. It published a document which listed 103 loans in the 0872 connection and claimed the document showed who owed what, and at what discount Nama acquired their loans at.

Nama did not confirm the document was accurate. It did however sue Namawinelake to try and force it to take the document down, which it did. How the document reached Namawinelake is unclear.

On December 20 2013, at the Dail Committee of Public Accounts, Sinn Fein politician Mary Lou McDonald quizzed Nama chief executive Brendan McDonagh and head of legal Aideen O’Reilly on the matter.

The Commissioner raised this issue with his bank AIB, emails show. Initially the bank said it had no record of any leak. Later it changed its position

“I think it is in the public domain that Mr Fraher is a debtor of Nama against whom we seek judgment proceedings. He made a complaint to the Data Protection Commissioner. As far as I am aware there was no basis for that,” McDonagh said.

“My information is that the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner has investigated that complaint and would have been in contact with our data protection officer in the NTMA [the parent of Nama]. I am not sure whether that investigation is fully complete,” O’Reilly clarified.

“It is at a very advanced stage but given that the investigation is ongoing, in so far as I do not know whether a final determination has been issued by the office, there is not much we can say on that except that it is an ongoing investigation.”

“I am sure you can agree that the complaint was of a most serious nature,” McDonald replied.

“Yes, it was a data security breach and has been, and is, I understand, under investigation by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner who is the regulator in the area,” O’Reilly replied.

I ask Fraher about his fears that his data had been leaked to a third party. He said he had made a separate complaint to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, which had found in his favour on another matter.

The Commissioner raised this issue with his bank AIB, emails show. Initially the bank said it had no record of any leak. Later it changed its position after the Commissioner sent it evidence of a potential breach based on documents which had been obtained by Fraher.

An apology followed from the bank. “On the basis of information from AIB it is the view of this Office that AIB breached Section 2 (1) (d) the Data Protection Acts 1988 & 2003, (The Acts), when it provided information relating to you to [a third party],” the Commissioner told Fraher in an email. It was an encouraging acknowledgement, but only a skirmish in a bigger war.

Closed doors in Namaland

In May 2013 AIB appointed receivers to three hotels in the Brennan Group including the Clonmel Park Hotel. A company called Hotel Asset Management Services (HAMS), which ran hotels in trading difficulties, was then put in as operator. It was a tough blow for Brian Brennan who had spent much of the previous years helping to raise €1 million for a girls’ orphanage in Sri Lanka. “I just want to thank all the staff for their support over the last 20 years,” Brennan said at the time.

There were also implications for Fraher. Under the terms of the original deal with the Brennan Group, its parent company Cranburg Ltd was supposed to buy the hotel for €16 million after seven years when the tax breaks expired. If for any reason Cranburg did not do so, the deal was that AIB would pay the hotel owners €4 million.

Seven years had more or less passed. With Cranburg in receivership there was no way it was going to be able to pay anything for the hotel, let alone €16 million. Fraher started to ask about the €4 million. As a one third stake holder in the hotel, he felt he was due some of this money.

In mid-2015 Fraher says he found out that AIB had agreed to pay just €2 million to settle the matter with Nama. Splitting the bill may well have been a pragmatic decision by both parties based on legal advice. But for Fraher he found himself shut out from a potential windfall.

Bruised and bankrupt

On December 13, 2014 John Fraher went bankrupt in England. “I never intended to go bankrupt. I had intended to work out the process,” Fraher said. “The only thing I could do was go bankrupt.”

“It is dreadful. You go through pain,” Fraher said. Fraher was grateful to his solicitor Gavin Simons from AMOSS and accountant Jim Stafford of Friel Stafford for advising him on his disputes with Nama, but he had only limited resources versus Namas.

When Fraher went bankrupt his debts were listed at €5 million owed to Nama. It was small beans compared with the numbers associated with other Nama clients who also went broke, and the many the agency kept alive despite having much larger borrowings.

Fraher owed nothing to the Revenue Commissioners as he had managed to keep his taxes up-to-date. A bankruptcy trustee was appointed to manage his various interests on behalf of his creditors.

After a year, Fraher was discharged on December 13, 2014 as a bankrupt. “Everything was compliant so there was no delay.” Fraher feels today he should not have had to go bankrupt. He feels he was treated more harshly than other borrowers who were in worse shape than he was, and that he had no choice but to apply for bankruptcy.

Nama has rejected this claim in correspondence with Fraher. His Nama case manager said in May 2019: “I reject completely your assertions that I as a Nama official adopted ‘a vindictive approach’ and ‘exhibited malicious intent towards you and your wife’.

“In addition you claim that NAMA ‘selected who to protect and who to destroy’ within the 0872 connection. Throughout my time as Case Manager on the 0872 connection…I have endeavoured at all times to conduct myself in a professional, courteous, polite and fair manner with all borrowers within this connection.”

The various other connections with 0872 continue to work with Nama, or in some cases by now may even have left it.

In April 2015 investment firm Tetrarch Capital acquired the Clonmel Park Hotel out of receivership. “The consideration was not significant. It’s not a particularly profitable hotel but we think we can make some changes to it,” Michael McElligott, chief executive of Tetrarch, said at the time.

Last June Tetrarch sold the hotel onto a fund controlled by Davy for €5 million, in a move that would appear to have made the investment firm a significant profit.

Nama put Poppyfield Retail Park up for sale in mid-2014 along with four other similar parks around the country. A few months later Marathon Asset Management bought Poppyfield along with the other parks for €155 million. Poppyfield is a successful park with most of its original tenants still there.

“I wanted to get away from my partners, I thought that was my problem. Then Nama comes along and I was caught with a double whammy.”

John Fraher

Fraher asked about the €1 million he was supposed to be paid if the park was ever sold, and was told no chance. He was getting nothing.

Fraher is frustrated about what has happened. He does not accept Nama’s explanations. He says he relates to Paddy McKillen who was almost dragged into Nama because of the debts of his co-investors. McKillen avoided such a fate by successfully suing the state agency in the High Court, before later repaying all his debts. 

“I would say that McKillen was a strong and smart individual,” Fraher said. “The system tried to fuck him over completely. I was the same on a much smaller scale. But he managed to come out of it.”

“With Nama you either signed the business plan and did what they told you or they were going to put your lights out,” Fraher said.  “I wanted to get away from my partners, I thought that was my problem. Then Nama comes along and I was caught with a double whammy.”

“I am not finished with Nama, AIB, or my bankruptcy trustee. This is not over yet.”

John Fraher

Does Fraher think he will ever be a millionaire again? “I am quite happy. I am not worried about being a millionaire. I am content in my head. I have dealt with this. Economic independence and freedom is the most important thing. At the end of the day if you can make your own decisions there is an awful lot to be said for that.”

John Fraher is out of Nama. His wife is no longer involved in Nama either. Fraher is out of bankruptcy too. He is still fighting over an overpaid tax bill in the hundreds of thousands of euro. Other disputes are ongoing.

Will he ever give up? “No. I am not finished with Nama, AIB, or my bankruptcy trustee. This is not over yet.”

Nama declined to comment in relation to Fraher, as is its usual policy with individuals. It also declined to comment in general in relation to its practices. George Maloney, an accountant and Fraher’s bankruptcy trustee, did not respond to emailed questions.