Westlife Shane’s wife bankrupted as vulture fund chases €4m debt
THE wife of former Westlife singer Shane Filan has been declared bankrupt after being pursued in the courts by a US vulture fund.
It is understood that Gillian Filan, 38, was brought to court by a subsidiary of Cerberus, which bought a number of mortgage debts her husband had with Ulster Bank.
Ms Filan was a co-signee on a number of these loans believed to be worth just over €4million, for which her husband Shane has already served bankruptcy.
Shane and Gillian Filan were coowners of three properties in Co. Sligo, all of which had Ulster Bank mortgages.
Ms Filan’s bankruptcy comes just five years after her husband was declared bankrupt in a UK court with debts of €23million. Mr Filan, 38, exited bankruptcy a year later and has since embarked on a solo singing career.
Father-of-three Shane filed for bankruptcy at Kingston County Court in south-west London in 2012 after becoming overexposed after investing heavily in property.
He was living in Surrey at the time. He and his family are now living in Sligo. Shafin Developments, the property development company he established with his brother Finbarr, also went into receivership.
The singer said he opted for bankruptcy after exhausting all other options.
During his career with Westlife, the group sold over 50million albums.
A close friend of the singer told the Irish Daily Mail: ‘This is the end of a long battle that Shane is keen to put behind him.
‘Naturally he is devastated that Gillian had to go through this but nothing will be as painful as the first bankruptcy and they came through that.
‘All he wants to do is move on and provide a living for his family. He hopes this will provide the final closure everyone needs to finally move on,’ added the friend.
Shane’s spokeswoman Joanne Byrne confirmed the news in an email.
‘After being pursued by financial institutions for over a year and threatened with High Court action, Gillan last week declared bankruptcy for the same loans that forced Shane into bankruptcy in 2012,’ Ms Byrne wrote.
‘I can confirm these are joint personal loans.’
It is understood that Shane will not be commenting on the current situation and is keen to move on for the sake of his family.
The week before Westlife sold out two farewell concerts at Croke park in June 2012, Shane had been declared bankrupt in an English court over the debts of €23million.
The historic concerts came at the lowest point of a financial nightmare. Shane, speaking to the
‘This is the end of a long battle’
Mail in 2013, said: ‘I think, I put it [the financial problems] aside because it was the biggest weekend of our lives. It didn’t matter that we had no money. We had our kids and our marriage.’
He continued at the time: ‘Your name is dragged through everything in a bad way.’
He is also adamant that he did everything in his power to avoid bankruptcy – including playing those two Croke Park dates for free, the Mail previously reported.
‘People still think that I had a whole load of money because I had just done Croke Park,’ he says. ‘I did Croke Park for free. I didn’t get a penny out of it. But it was the best show of my life because it wasn’t about anything else apart from singing.’
He added: ‘A couple of days later I was in London and it was the scariest day in ten years.
‘I was coming out of a shop and I went to get money out of the bank and I had €470. That was five days after I had sold out two nights in Croke Park.
‘I remember my son Patrick asking if I could buy him a SpiderMan toy and I remember crying my eyes out inside because I couldn’t. I had no money, no job and I had no end in sight. I had my wife and kids and Louis Walsh, who was the other avenue of amazing support, but that was it.’
Like many other Celtic Tiger-era tales of woe, Shane’s financial problems stemmed from the collapse of the property market.
He previously said: ‘I was planning for the future, hoping that would be okay, but it ended up obviously being the complete opposite. But, look, it happened for a reason, everything happens for a reason.’