Westport House could be sold as part of upcoming NAMA deal

Cerberus reportedly in pole position to acquire loans of iconic estate

Neill O’Neill

WESTPORT House is facing a very uncertain future, after NAMA placed a loan attaching to the the 380 acre estate up for sale.
One of Mayo’s biggest tourism attractions, as illustrated in a new report into the economic benefits of Westport House launched last Tuesday, loans attaching to the estate form part of the portfolio of properties currently being sold by NAMA, under the name ‘Project Arrow’.
It has been widely reported that New York-based private investment firm Cerberus are firmly in the bidding process for ‘Project Arrow’, and therefore the fate of Westport House could fall to them to decide should they be successful in their attempt to acquire the approximately 1,500 loans that comprise ‘Project Arrow’.
Cerberus have been in the news constantly in recent months as they are the company that purchased the ‘Project Eagle’ portfolio from NAMA in Northern Ireland, which has been the subject of much controversy and accusations of wrongdoing on both sides of the border. It is impossible to speculate as to the fate of the estate, but whoever does acquire ‘Project Arrow’ will control the assets to which each of the loans contained within it are attached, and will be free to do as they please with them.
There is a provision in the NAMA Act that permits a property to be sold without open marketing, and therefore outside of the usual NAMA sale processes, where a government entity or state or semi-state body makes an approach to purchase that property for legitimate reasons of public interest. While openly recognising the value and contribution of Westport House to the town, county and region, both Tourism Minister Michael Ring and Chief Executive of Mayo County Council, Peter Hynes, said that they could not comment any further on the matter at this time, when contacted by The Mayo News.
This sale is expected to be completed in the coming months, but despite this Westport House remains fully open for business and staff and management there are planning a busy Halloween and Christmas schedule this year, and are looking ahead to the main tourism season of 2016.

€50 million contribution to local economy
Ironically, this comes at a time when prospects for Westport House and Estate never looked better. In the 12 months to the end of September 2014, Westport House made a direct economic contribution of almost €1.68 million to the exchequer and the local and regional economy. This was revealed last week in a far reaching economic impact study that was prepared on behalf of Mayo County Council by CHL Consulting Ltd, which also found that in terms of economic value generated, some €50.7 million will be spent in Mayo and the wider region by consumers visiting Westport House this year. This figure is separate to the spend these visitors will make at the house itself, and is based on respondents to a large survey who indicated that Westport House was the principal purpose of their visit to Mayo. On site, Westport House directly employs 47 people (full-time equivalents), and based on FΡilte Ireland figures and the survey results, supports a further 1,724 jobs elsewhere in the region. In the year to the end of September 2014, 161,906 people visited Westport House, while the estate paid €292,477 in direct taxation; €733,515 in wages and a further €653,000 on goods and services required, many of which were sourced locally in Westport and Mayo. Westport House has recorded considerable growth in recent years, showing an 82 percent increase in paying visitors between 2009 and 2014 - in the midst of a deep recession in Ireland. Outside of financial and tourism contributions, it is impossible to quantify the value of Westport House in a social, cultural and historical context to the town of Westport and the county of Mayo.

Sale
‘Project Arrow’ will be the largest portfolio sale to be undertaken by Nama, involving €7.2 billion in loans. It is expected that the sale price of ‘Project Arrow’ will involve a significant write down on the book value of these loans - with some estimating that it could be around €900 million - one eighth of their original value.