{"id":635885,"date":"2026-09-25T18:58:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T18:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/635885\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T18:58:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T18:58:15","slug":"paddy-mckillen-jnr-with-debts-of-e27-7m-applies-for-personal-insolvency-arrangement-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/635885\/","title":{"rendered":"Paddy McKillen jnr, with debts of \u20ac27.7m, applies for personal insolvency arrangement \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The High Court has granted businessman Paddy McKillen jnr<\/a> a protection certificate that will protect him from his creditors for 70 days.<\/p>\n

Barrister Keith Farry, appearing for personal insolvency practitioner Eugene McDarby, successfully applied for the certificate for the businessman, co-founder of the Press Up<\/a> hospitality group.<\/p>\n

Farry told Judge Michael Quinn that McKillen jnr, of Torquay Road, Foxrock, Dublin, was \u201cfirmly insolvent\u201d and had liabilities of \u20ac27.7 million. He has just \u20ac270 in his bank account, Farry said.<\/p>\n

McKillen jnr, who was not in court, owes \u20ac2.9 million to his wife Edel McKillen and \u20ac1.8 million to his mother Maura McKillen, the court heard.<\/p>\n

McKillen jnr\u2019s liabilities total \u20ac27,710,644.51 while he has assets of just \u20ac143,295.72, according to documents provided to the court.<\/p>\n

Farry said McKillen jnr\u2019s wife gives him \u20ac300 per week for his personal expenses, while she pays for all the household expenses, \u201cthe light, the heat, the food and all the rest\u201d. <\/p>\n

Almost \u20ac735,000 is owed on McKillen jnr\u2019s mortgage, which is in arrears of \u20ac18,995.92, according to documents. The property, which was valued at \u20ac2.1 million when it was bought in 2014, is not deemed to be an asset as it is held on trust.<\/p>\n

Farry said the majority of McKillen jnr\u2019s assests \u2013 some \u20ac105,000 \u2013 relate to cars he owns, including a 1986 Porsche 911 Carrera Targa worth \u20ac45,000, a 2021 Volkswagen Golf worth \u20ac35,000 and a 1983 BMW 6 Series valued at \u20ac25,000.<\/p>\n

McKillen jnr has a personal Revolut account with a balance of \u20ac270.08 and a Revolut cryptocurrency account with a balance of \u20ac193.79, according to the documents. The rest of his assets relate to stocks, shares and art, including five Richard Gormley paintings valued at \u20ac15,000.<\/p>\n

An account he has with Bank of Ireland is overdrawn by \u20ac345, according to the files.<\/p>\n

A number of McKillen jnr\u2019s business debts were also disclosed to the court: he owes \u20ac8.9 million to Jonc Ltd, which is based in the Isle of Man, \u20ac8.7 million to Cabriz Finance Ltd in Monaghan and \u20ac2.3 million to Herbert Street Property Finance in Dublin, among other debts.<\/p>\n

The High Court last month rejected McKillen jnr\u2019s bid to set aside a bankruptcy summons<\/a> over an alleged \u20ac2.1 million debt, but adjourned the case for six months.<\/p>\n

In a judgment on August 13th, Judge Liam Kennedy dismissed McKillen jnr\u2019s arguments to strike down lender Herbert Street Property Finance\u2019s summons, finding that he had not established that the summons was an abuse of process, and was brought for \u201can ulterior motive\u201d.<\/p>\n

A number of Press Up group restaurants and venues recorded six-figure losses<\/a> in the year before London-based lender Cheyne Capital<\/a> took over the group from McKillen jnr and his business partner Matt Ryan.<\/p>\n

Cheyne Capital, a long-standing finance partner of Press Up, which has since rebranded the chain as Eclective, took control of the hospitality group<\/a> as part of a debt-for-equity swap in September 2024.<\/p>\n

Press Up had set up many hospitality businesses in Dublin, including the Stella Cinema, a chain of Wowburger restaurants and several cocktail bars.<\/p>\n

In a statement, McKillen jnr pointed to the pandemic and the subsequent inflation and sharp interest rate rises that followed, with \u201climited access to traditional commercial banking in Ireland\u201d forcing many group businesses with which he was involved to borrow at higher cost from alternative lenders.<\/p>\n

He said that restructuring programmes had \u201csafeguarded all these businesses, protected thousands of jobs, and ensured many of these iconic venues have a long-term future\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me personally, insolvency is now unavoidable,\u201d he said. \u201cCertain alternative lenders have pursued me personally in the courts for personal guarantees that I gave in support of company debts and these liabilities outweigh any assets.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Inside Wowburger during a late-night rush: \u2018People stand on the counter and demand their burger\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The High Court has granted businessman Paddy McKillen jnr a protection certificate that will protect him from his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,73,43,39002,59971,68432,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-635885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-high-court","tag-news","tag-paddy-mckillen","tag-paddy-mckillen-jnr","tag-press-up-hospitality-group","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}