From ¤1bn f irm to bankruptcy for property tycoon
TOUSLE-HAIRED and relaxed during a break from work, Marilyn Monroe still displays the same allure that made her an enduring screen icon.
Taken by a trusted friend on location while she filmed her first leading role for Niagara in 1953, this picture has never been seen by the public before.
It shows the 27-year-old actress on the brink of international stardom. Smiling, she seems not to care that her top has slipped down one shoulder as she reclines by Niagara Falls.
In another shot, she wears a knotted scarf as a makeshift sunhat – an image a long way from the glamorous persona which haunted her until her death nine years later.
The man behind the camera was Allan ‘Whitey’ Snyder, Monroe’s make-up artist. She would ask him to photograph her to calm her nerves before filming.
He died in the 1990s and the pictures were released after his archive of photos emerged for sale at auction in Beverly Hills this weekend. JUST five years ago, he was on course to become one of Ireland’s richest property investors after his company, Vico Capital, was valued at nearly €1billion.
But now, solicitor and property investor Brian O’donnell, along with his wife Dr Mary Patricia, has been declared bankrupt in the UK, in the face of debts of €800million to banks in different countries.
The Commercial Court in Dublin was told of the couple’s successful bankruptcy application yesterday, after the pair, who owe €75million to the Bank of Ireland, failed to appear before the court to be questioned about their current assets.
The O’donnells’ lawyer told Mr Justice Peter Kelly he had been informed the London high court had granted bankruptcy orders against them that morning.
The O’donnells had claimed in correspondence with BOI their centre of main interest was the UK. This is contested by the bank. They were ordered to pay back €75million to BOI last year, after they were said to have breached a settlement agreement.
Judge Kelly yesterday directed them to appear in court on April 17 to be cross-examined on whether they can pay their debts.
He said two statements of affairs given by the couple to BOI in March 2011 and February 2012 contained ‘alarming’ discrepancies in their assets and liabilities.
The bank wanted to explore these discrepancies and get the facts from the O’donnells by questioning them in court.
The court was told the O’donnells had initially claimed they part or fully- owned investment properties in Ireland, the UK, France, Sweden and the U.S. They later said they held them in trust for one or more of their four children.
Judge Kelly said he was ‘not impressed’ with how they had handled matters. In particular, he objected to how Mr O’donnell had failed to appear in court last December, but had then given an interview to RTÉ’S Marian Finucane Show that month in which he complained about the bank.
‘I don’t find that an impressive way of dealing with one’s obligations,’ said Judge Kelly. He said their failure to appear yesterday had given him a ‘sense of déjà vu’.
Mr O’donnell, 59, is a former managing partner of Dublin’s William Fry solicitors. He set up Vico Capital in 2001. By April 2007, it was valued at nearly €1billion.
The couple said in February 2012 their home, Gorse Hill, in Killiney, Co. Dublin, was valued at €30million in 2006 but the value was now €6million to €7million. The bank is concerned about the ownership of this house.
It is said to be held by Isle of Man company Vico Limited, which is beneficially owned by their children. The court was previously told Mr O’donnell believed he had a ‘flexible’ arrangement for repaying the cash. He said the bank had put ‘unnecessary and undue pressure on me and my wife’.