How to lose £84 MILLION!

1) Derry factory site ’sold too cheaply’

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

The report showed that the Tillie and Henderson factory was sold on after four months for a £175,000 profit – and the taxpayer never saw an extra penny of the profit.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/northwest-edition/daily/article2951343.ece

You can read that story but basically its no big deal. The most interesting part was

“The Northern Ireland Audit Office report found that a number of sites across the province were sold off at £4m below market value. £4 million, but believe me thats small change”.

2) Sweeney’s big land sale deal on the brink of being sealed

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article3226489.ece

This is an excellent story and well worth reading, but basically what happened was the Government sold this land for £50 million which was £25 million below the valuation. Another £25 million gone, but they did turn down the first offer for the land of £9 million even though they were being lobbied by Ian Paisley jr and they do deserve some credit for that. Seriously they could have just sold it for £9 million and got a rap on the knuckles from the Auditors Office. So that’s ….£4m plus £25m = £29 million… GONE!

In the tradition of keeping the best until last this wasn’t even reported locally apart from a few sentences in Property News so I have to make up a headline. Try this……..

3) HOUSING EXECUTIVE LOSE £55 MILLION

In the Sunday Times earlier in the year (May) and there was a small report about the deal done by the Belfast Property Partnership MLS The Times reported that a plot land was bought 11 months ago by MLS for £40 million from the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and will be sold to Irish investor Michael Taggert for £95 million. Obviously a £55 million profit in less than a year.

 

Below is a report on the same deal in Property Week,their figures are slightly different and I believe the land was in Strabane and was possibly called Millmount. The original report in the Sunday Times Business section was done by a girl called Aine Coffee

 

 

Investor Michael Taggart, meanwhile, has bought the 90 acre (36.4 ha) Mill Mound site in Belfast from the MLS Partnership for £96m.

The MLS Partnership, bought the site three months ago for just £36m.

http://www.propertyweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=36&storycode=3086230&c=1

So that’s £25m + £4m + £55m = £84 million GONE! The list of things Northern Ireland could have done with £84 million is too long to even start. How come all the really smart guys work for the property developers and not the Government apart from Ian Paisley jr. He works for us.