Owner of London's Citigroup Tower Files for Bankruptcy

Derek Quinlan, who went from being a tax official to the financier behind successful bids for Citigroup Inc.'s tower in Canary Wharf and Banco Santander SA's global headquarters, filed for bankruptcy in London.

The businessman blamed the decision to appoint a receiver to a number of his properties on his failure to reach agreement with Ireland’s bad bank, the National Asset Management Agency, about his loans that were taken into the organization as part of a bailout of the country’s lenders in 2009. NAMA appointed a receiver to a number of his properties in 2011 after Quinlan failed to agree a repayment plan for some of his loans.

The businessman said that the dispute has prevented him from restarting his career, claiming that NAMA rejected his efforts to settle with him. He said that he has repaid €3.1 billion ($3.21 billion) in “personal and associated debt” to the bad bank.

Quinlan accused NAMA of selling London real estate at the wrong time, saying that the assets could have been sold with a surplus if the organization had waited. He claimed that this represented hundreds of millions of profit for NAMA on his debt, which they purchased at a significant discount.

A representative for NAMA declined to provide comment.

Quinlan Private, a business owned by Quinlan, spent billions of euros on real estate during Ireland's Celtic Tiger period. The country's property boom created huge profits for leading business people, and Quinlan's business took advantage of this by acquiring assets such as the Maybourne Hotel Group in London (which includes Claridge's) and the Savoy Group. However, when the property market crashed, the value of these assets plummeted, and Quinlan lost a great deal of money.

Quinlan said that he is not going along with a separate bankruptcy petition that was filed against him by a fund that is connected to businessman Robert Tchenguiz. This petition is in relation to a personal debt of around €75 million that is linked to the Banco Santander headquarters. Quinlan said that he is not able to pay the legal costs that would be required in order to defend the case.