Bids on North Dock offices fall hopelessly short of €130m sought by receivers

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) and Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital look set to have their investment in the landmark North Dock office scheme in Dublin’s north docklands wiped out, with initial bids for the property falling hopelessly short of the €130 million being sought by CBRE on behalf of receivers.

While a sale at the guide price or above would provide for the repayment of the €120 million owed to the scheme’s senior lender, US investment giant Pimco, along with a small surplus, The Irish Times has learned that first-round offers for the property have come in at between €60 million and €95 million. Up to 10 parties are understood to have submitted bids for the scheme, which was developed by Targeted Investment Opportunities (TIO), an umbrella fund involving Nama, Oaktree Capital and Bennett Construction.

The bidders are said by market sources to have included Eamon Waters’s investment and property development company, Sretaw PE, Hines, developer Pat Crean’s Marlet Property Group, BCP, Orion Capital Managers, Lugus Capital and Patron Capital.

Developed as one of Dublin’s first nearly-zero energy buildings, North Dock extends to 18,766sq m (202,000sq ft) in total, distributed between North Dock One (8,826sq m/95,000sq ft) and North Dock Two (9,940sq m/107,000sq ft). Tenants at the scheme include California-based biopharma group Gilead Sciences, US securities brokerage firm Interactive Brokers, and Blueface, a cloud-based telecommunications company.

Oaktree has a 60 per cent equity stake in North Dock while Nama holds the remaining 40 per cent. Bennett Construction was the design-and-build contractor for the scheme.

The TIO consortium had put the offices on the market last August for €155 million but failed to receive a bid. Eamon Richardson and Kieran Wallace of Interpath Advisory were appointed by Pimco in February of this year to pursue the sale process that is under way.