By: Michael O’Farrell
Investigations Editor
MEET Robert Dix, the Siteserv director who is perhaps the most connected man in Ireland you’ve never heard of.
A figure at the heart of the Siteserv controversy, he is also the Irish director of a company at the centre of the recently announced deal to sell a Coillte forest to holiday group Center Parcs – a firm controlled by ‘vulture’ fund Blackstone.
That is not the only interesting connection which the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal Mr Dix to have. Experienced businessman Mr Dix:
– Owns a €1m property portfolio with the chief executive of the Davy Group – one of the firms that advised on the Siteserv sale.
– Launched a start-up business three months after the liquidation of IBRC in 2013 with Richard Woodhouse – a member of the IBRC management team that clashed with Department of Finance officials.
– Is a former colleague of Kieran Wallace of KPMG, who is charged with investigating the Siteserv deal.
– Was appointed in 2013 to a Harnessing Our Ocean Wealth Development Task Force by Marine Minister Simon Coveney.
The Center Parcs resort proposal, which promises more than 1,000 jobs, was unveiled last month by Enda Kenny after more than a year of negotiations at Government and local authority level. Centre Parcs say Mr Dix was not involved in the talks.
But with both Coillte and the Government declining to specify the financial terms of the deal, the announcement has been greeted with concern in some quarters.
The fact that Center Parcs is fully controlled by global investment giant Blackstone will do little to assuage those fears – especially since the appointment of Blackstone as advisers to IBRC was one of the concerns noted by Department of Finance staff in recently released FOI documents that led to the Siteserv controversy.
According to one of the FOI documents – a July 2012 briefing note for Secretary General Ann Nolan – Finance officials were concerned that IBRC had appointed Blackstone ‘without following a standard procurement process’. ‘While IBRC did put in place safeguards, the appointment of Blackstone in the absence of an open and transparent procurement process left IBRC and the State exposed to questions of credibility,’ the note reads.
Led by CEO Steve Schwarzman, Blackstone has been increasing its investments in Irish distressed assets. Famously in 2010 Mr Schwarzman, who had a private meeting with Enda Kenny in 2011, spoke of his strategy when it came to investing in Europe. ‘We’re waiting to see how beaten up people’s psyches get,’ he said. ‘You want to wait until there’s blood in the streets.’
Company records reveal that Mr Dix has been a director of Center Parcs Ireland Ltd since March. Like other Center Parcs resorts the company is owned, via a firm in Luxembourg, by a Blackstone-controlled company in the Cayman Islands.
Asked about the Center Parcs deal Coillte, led since April 15 by former Coveney adviser Fergal Leamy, said it could not comment on commercially sensitive matters.
But in a statement to the MoS a Center Parcs spokesman said Mr Dix had been recommended to them as their new Irish company required an Irish board member.
Asked who had recommended him, a spokesperson responded: ‘I don’t know.’ Asked if Mr Dix played any role in negotiations at Government level, the spokesperson said: ‘Mr Dix has had no involvement in any organisations regarding this project.’
This week Mr Dix, who was appointed to a marine task force by Minister Coveney in 2013, did not answer MoS questions about his role with Center Parcs. The proposed €200m Center Parcs resort in Ballymahon, Co. Longford, has already prompted concerns about transparency from ecological activists. ‘We only discovered this when it was announced,’ said Andrew St Ledger, a spokesman for the Woodland League which opposed a previous Government plan to sell off Coillte’s State-owned forests.
Mr Dix, also declined to comment on his joint ownership of a property portfolio with Davy Stockbrokers CEO Brian McKiernan and his business relationship with former IBRC executive Richard Woodhouse.
The MoS has confirmed that Mr Dix and his wife Jean – a sister of Mr McKiernan – have jointly owned five apartments in Cork since 2000. The properties, two of which have since been sold, are worth over €1m. Land registry and planning files indicate that Mr Dix and Mr McKiernan jointly own a further Cork property at Schull harbour.
In answer to questions about these ties, Mr Dix issued a general statement saying he believed it was ‘appropriate to await the results’ of the Government review into certain IBRC transactions’. ‘My understanding is that a comprehensive review of a number of IBRC-related transactions will be carried out. I am happy to cooperate with the review if requested,’ he said.
Links between former and current KPMG officials have already been the focus of questions since Kieran Wallace of KPMG was last week appointed to investigate the Siteserv controversy.
Many of these questions were sparked by the fact that KPMG – together with Davy Corporate Finance – originally advised Siteserv during its sale to Millington, a Denis O’Brien-owned firm.
Former IBRC chairman Alan Dukes has said that the bid by Denis O’Brien’s firm was the one with the best result for the bank, and therefore the taxpayer.
Today’s revelation that Davy boss Brian McKiernan is related to and has property investments with Mr Dix will likely raise fresh questions about possible conflicts of interest.
However, last night a Davy spokesman said: ‘Mr McKiernan played no role in the Siteserv transaction.’ The spokesman added that Mr McKiernan had no involvement in the Davy Group’s ‘separate and standalone company’ Davy Corporate Finance Ltd – the entity which had advised Siteserv. However, Mr McKiernan is a partner, director and shareholder in the Davy Group’s holding company, J&E Davy Holdings Ltd, which ultimately owns all the group’s companies.
Additional revelations today that Mr Dix is in business with former IBRC executive Richard Woodhouse further point to the close associations between many of those linked to the Siteserv deal.
Mr Woodhouse, played a prominent role in pursuing Quinn family assets for IBRC prior to the bank’s liquidation in February 2013. Mr Dix fulfilled a similar role for IBRC’s receiver, Kieran Wallace, after the bank was brought into liquidation.
Now the pair are directors and shareholders of a new company called The Working Capital Company which plans to be involved in providing debt finance for small and medium sized enterprises.
In a statement to the MoS last night Mr Woodhouse, who has also formed a London consultancy firm with former IBRC boss Mike Aynsley, said he had no involvement in the Siteserv sale and had ‘no other business relationship with Mr Dix.’ Mr Woodhouse said he welcomes the government review of IBRC deals. He added that Mr Dix approached him in 2014 in relation to The Working Capital Company and it ‘has never traded since or to date,’ he said.
