Undertakings given in premises earmarked for restaurant High Court dispute
Last week, the court granted permission to Yingjin Lin, her daughter Qin Pin Huang and her son-in-law Qun Huang, to serve injunction proceedings seeking to prevent Frank Mullan from interfering with their right to use 25 Trimgate Street.
The application was made on a one-side only represented basis.
On Tuesday, the case returned to court when Fred Gilligan BL, for the plaintiffs, said the defendant had agreed to give undertakings pending the full hearing of the case.
READ MORE
Ms Yingjin Lin, who lives in China, bought the property last January from another man who had previously bought it from a receiver acting for asset acquisition firm Promontoria (Pluto) Ltd.
She delegated management to her daughter and son-in-law who live in Ireland.
Ms Qin Ping Huang said she believed Mr Mullan (also known as Mullan) previously owned the property and did not challenge its sale by the receiver to the last owner.
She said after buying the property, an agreement was made with a prospective tenant to let it out to be used as a restaurant, starting at a rent of €36,000 annually.
However, she said efforts to access the property by the prospective tenant for renovation work were blocked by the defendant who also changed the locks. Mr Mullan also used his car to block access to the rear yard.
In correspondence, it was asserted on behalf of Mr Mullan that he has ownership of part of the property which he and his tenants had occupied solely and exclusively.
Injunction proceedings were served after the prospective restaurant tenant said he was considering pulling out of the lease agreement where Mr Mullan continued to interfere with access and occupy certain parts of the property.
On Tuesday, Mr Justice Brian Cregan adjourned the matter to October.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
17 minutes ago
- Irish Times
Bank of Ireland profit falls 31% amid impairment charge as tariffs weigh
Bank of Ireland reported a 31 per cent drop in net profit for the first half of the year as its net interest income declined and the bank increased loan impairment charges as US tariff-related risks weigh on the economic outlook. Still, the bank marginally increased its full-year net interest income forecast and maintained its medium-term financial targets. Bank of Ireland's net profit fell to €608 million in the first half, it said in a statement on Tuesday. While its net interest income declined to €1.67 billion from €1.8 billion for the same period last year, the result was better than the company had expected, it said. READ MORE The lender hiked its net impairment losses to €137 million from €50 million, driven by an increase in 'loan loss experience' and as management took a €40 million general provision to reflect 'the evolving macroeconomic outlook'. While Bank of Ireland's economists upgraded their Irish economic forecasts in recent weeks, this was caveated on the EU reaching a trade deal with the US that wouild leave tariffs on most Irish goods at 10 per cent. However, an accord reached over the weekend will see a 15 per cent tariff apply to most imports from the EU. Looking ahead, the bank now sees its net interest income coming in at €3.3 billion, up marginally from €3.25 billion previously forecast. It reported €3.56 billion of net interest income last year in a higher interest rate environment. It continues to expect its so-called business income – including income from its New Ireland life business, Davy, and shares of joint ventures – to expected to rise 5 per cent. 'The group had a good first half performance,' said chief executive Myles O'Grady. 'Against an uncertain international backdrop, the Irish economy is resilient. Bank of Ireland is well positioned to navigate this environment, generating strong levels of capital to support customers, grow our balance sheet, invest in the business and deliver attractive shareholder returns.' Bank of Ireland reaffirmed its full-year guidance of delivering net profit equivalent to about 15 per cent of shareholders' tangible equity in the business. Having recommenced interim ordinary dividends in 2024, the bank announced that it will pay an interim dividend of €243 million on its result for the first half. Since the start of 2023 the group has returned €2.6 billion to shareholders through a series of buybacks and dividends, it noted.
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Trade deal fallout and how to start accumulating wealth
After months of fraught negotiations, the EU and US finally have a trade agreement, or at least the bones of one. While much is yet to be worked out, it is clear that it is being seen as a win for the US and loss for the EU. Jack Power and Harry McGee report on the deal, while Colin Gleeson and Paul Colgan report on the reaction to it. Jack also has details of how the deal was done. Ruchir Sharma meanwhile, looks at what the world got wrong about tariffs. Irish financier Paul Coulson has agreed to cede entire control of Ardagh Group, the glass bottles and drink cans giant he built up over the past 25 years, to a group of its bondholders in exchange for a share of a $300 million (€257 million) pay-off. Joe Brennan has the details, as well as how Coulson got to this point . In Your Money, Siobhan Maguire looks at how to accumulate wealth . Do you have to make many, sharp choices. Or do you need to be patient? READ MORE Dominic Coyle meanwhile answers questions on whether you can pay into an Irish pension while being based in the UK, and whether an inheritance from the US is liable for tax in Ireland. The hospitality group which operates Hogan's pub on Dublin's South Great George's Street has lodged plans for a new pub restaurant at the former Ballsbridge Post Office in Dublin 4. Gordon Deegan has the plans. A pay increase of more than €23,000 was approved for the new chief executive of the Housing Agency after negotiations between two government departments. As Ken Foxe reports, the Housing Agency said their preferred candidate, Martin Whelan, had been paid a higher salary than that in his previous role in the National Treasury Management Agency. Aquila European Renewables (AER), the UK-based green energy company that took on a secondary listing in Dublin two years ago, has hit a hurdle in its plans to wind down as the potential buyer of a large portion of its assets scaled back its bid. Joe has the story. Finally, Leah McMahon, financial planner with Limerick-based Castle Capital and Rose of Tralee contestant takes us through her finances . If you'd like to read more about the issues that affect your finances try signing up to On the Money , the weekly newsletter from our personal finance team, which will be issued every Friday to Irish Times subscribers.
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Paul Coulson: The high-wire financier who cut his teeth restructuring the Trinity Ball
Financier Paul Coulson built Ardagh Group into a big force in glass and metal packaging by being one of the most nimble Irish movers in high finance over the past 25 years – funding well-timed acquisitions with even better-timed forays into the high-cost global junk bond markets. At its peak, Ardagh Group had a market valuation of $6.7 billion (€5.8 billion) four years ago, before it was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. That put Coulson's indirect 36 per cent stake at $2.4 billion. Yet Coulson's high-wire financing would ultimately catch up with him. The total $12.5 billion of borrowings Ardagh Group was ultimately left carrying became too much to bear as it grappled in recent years with inflation, soaring interest rates and soft consumer demand on both sides of the Atlantic. It led to a major restructuring – unveiled on Monday after months of tough negotiations with various classes of creditors – that will see a bunch off bondholders take control of the group in a debt-for-equity swap. [ Paul Coulson faces last stand in battle to retain control of Ardagh Opens in new window ] Coulson, former and current managers and a small group of investors – believed to run into hundreds – who stayed with the company for more than two decades, after its previous life on the Dublin stock market, will share $300 million (€249 million) of go-away money. It may be hard to feel sorry for them. It is understood that Ardagh Group's soon-to-be former shareholders will have shared in excess of $2 billion over the years by the time they exit – between debt-fuelled dividends and share buybacks, a windfall from the sale of the leasehold on its original base in Dublin 's Ringsend just before the 2008 property crash, and the $300 million pay-off. Coulson, known to friends as the Cooler from his university days, has been the main beneficiary. The businessman cut his teeth in the world of commerce by restructuring the finances of the Trinity Ball in the early 1970s while at college. The Dubliner started his career as an accountant with Craig Gardner (now part of PwC) in London. In 1982 he set up Yeoman International, an aircraft leasing and investment firm, where he executed a deal six years later that he would regret. After Yeoman International forked out £93 million sterling for CLF Holdings, a British leasing company to small businesses, it quickly became apparent that it had bought a dud. Bad debts in a unit of the company soared as the UK economy soured. Coulson turned on his advisers on the deal, merchant bank SG Warburg. He sued the bank and secured an out-of-court settlement of £35 million. In targeting a business more than six times the size of Ardagh by value, Coulson set the funding template for what would underpin billions of euro of subsequent deals: leverage Soon after, the Irish Glass Bottle Company, which traced its roots to 1932, was in his sights. He bought an initial stake and took over as chairman in 1998. Within a year he started off on a road to transform the sleepy company – by then renamed Ardagh Plc – with a single glass plant in Dublin and its two furnaces through the acquisition of Rockware, then Britain's largest glass bottle maker, for £247 million. In targeting a business more than six times the size of Ardagh by value, Coulson set the funding template for what would underpin billions of euro of subsequent deals: leverage. Some 375 workers at the Irish Glass Bottle plant lost their jobs when Coulson closed the facility in 2002. The following year, he engineered a deal that would split the group in two. Ardagh Glass, a company he subsequently used to build his glass and drink cans empire, was taken private. The other, South Wharf, remained listed, with one major asset: the leasehold on the 24-acre glass bottle site in Dublin. South Wharf and its shareholders went on to share two-thirds of the €411 million proceeds from the sale of the site as the property boom neared its peak, in 2006. Almost two decades later, the site is finally under construction. Ardagh Group's largest deal was its $3.4 billion purchase in 2016 of a bunch of beverage can manufacturing plants that US packaging group Ball Corp and UK peer Rexam were forced to sell to get competition authorities to allow their merger. Coulson secured a New York listing for that unit, called Ardagh Metal Packaging (AMP), in 2021, leaving Ardagh Group with a 76 per cent stake. He delisted Ardagh Group, the parent company, the same year – as equity markets were prepared to give metal packaging businesses a higher valuation than glass. AMP, whose sales and earnings have recovered strongly in recent quarters, even as the glass business remains under pressure, became the centre of a major battle in recent months. Originally, Coulson wanted to give bondholders control of the struggling glass business, while he and other legacy investors would retain an 80 per cent stake in AMP. Talks along those lines broke down in late May. The final accord will see Coulson – who has extensive other assets – hand over 92.5 per cent of the group to senior unsecured creditors, who are owed $2.39 billion, and 7.5. per cent to a group of lower-ranking debt investors, known as payment-in-kind not holders. They are owed $1.98 billion. Major bondholders that are set to become shareholders include: California-based Franklin Templeton, which is best known from taking a major bet on Irish government bonds at the height of the financial crisis; Wall Street giant JP Morgan; and New York-based Monarch Alternative Capital. The restructuring is expected to be completed by the end of September. Coulson might have gone down the legal route to assert rights over AMP, as it was a so-called unrestricted subsidiary of Ardagh Group, separated by a holding company that was set up in April 2022. In the end he opted for a consensual arrangement with the $300 million pay-off. The deal also avoids a change of control at the AMP level within the group, which would have resulted in its own $3.69 billion of bond debt automatically falling due for repayment.
