Broadhaven / Bain Capital
Also known as: Val Issuer DAC, Knight Issuer DAC, Larea Fa Fund II DAC, Blondie Issuer DAC and over 800 other companies
Bain Capital is a US investment firm that was originally founded in the 1980s by former US presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
The Irish wing of Bain Capital Investments is Bain Capital Investments (Ireland) Limited.
David Cullen is the director of Bain Capital Investments (Ireland) Limited. His official title in Bain Capital is “Partner in Special Situations.”
Broadhaven Credit Partners is the "local arm" of Bain Capital in Ireland. Originally founded in 2014 to "fill a lending gap" when traditional banks weren't lending during the recession, Broadhaven and Bain have been voracious, buying up entire housing estates, hotels, a vast portfolio of apartments and even aircraft companies.
Bain Capital makes Dublin credit arm HQ - Irish Independant (archive version)
Through their Irish office, Bain has expanded into Europe which means there are several Irish-registered companies that now own repossessed homes in Spain, office buildings in Paris, an office furnishings company in Milan, an Italian shipping company; an equipment hire company in New Zealand, businesses in Portugal, a portfolio of Greek bank debt and probably much much more.
The rented properties owned by Bain and Broadhaven are, as far as we can tell, held by several different companies. These include Val Issuer DAC, Knight Issuer DAC, Larea Fa Fund II DAC (sometimes called Larea Fa Fund 2 DAC) and Blondie Issuer DAC, all of which have been named as landlords in eviction cases in the RTB.
Intriguingly, all of these companies are also linked to another top evictor, Lugus Capital/Grayling Properties.
Lugus Capital / Grayling - Landlord Database
In 2016, Broadhaven financed Lugus Capital/Grayling Properties’ purchase of "a portfolio of run-down rental properties in sought-after areas of Dublin’s south city". Lugus' intention was to "renovate them and sell them on to institutional investors as a portfolio of high-yielding buy-to-lets."
This unsurprisingly resulted in a lot of evictions, primarily of tenants on low incomes who had been renting these “run-down” homes for years. It’s unknown if any of them were offered their homes back after the renovation. In 2018, Lugus Capital then sold this “Belgrave Portfolio” - bought with the financial support of Broadhaven - to yet another one of our top evictors, OCP Belgrave.
OCP Belgrave - Landlord Database
As if this funding link wasn’t enough, it goes further.
Broadhaven are Lugus Capital’s main funders and a majority shareholder in several of their companies. Lugus Capital/Grayling Properties also have a very tiny 0.01% share in some of Broadhaven/Bain’s rental-owning companies.
However, Grayling Properties also are the property manager for Broadhaven’s rental properties. When Broadhaven’s company Val Issuer DAC wanted to evict 13 families from one of their Dublin 8 properties in the summer of 2019, they had Grayling Properties subsidiary company Belgrave Property Management handle the dirty work of issuing notices of termination and dealing with the RTB cases that the tenants took. Grayling Property Management’s profile on Daft.ie is very regularly updated, and many of the properties listed there over the last several months are owned by one Broadhaven company or another.
Safe to say, Lugus Capital is still very cosy with Broadhaven, managing their properties (via Grayling Property Management) well after their original funding arrangement has ended.
This “buy-renovate-evict-sell” strategy worked so well for Broadhaven and Lugus Capital in 2018 that they decided to do it all over again in 2019. This time, Broadhaven was the main shareholder of the companies Val Issuer DAC, Knight Issuer DAC and Larea Fa Fund II DAC, that bought up portfolios of rental properties across Dubin and in Wicklow, Cork and Meath. Lugus Capital’s company Grayling Properties managed the letting of many of these properties.
The subsequent evictions linked to Broadhaven companies were mostly in Dublin: across the south inner city, Clontarf, various parts of Co. Dublin such as Cabinteely, Ongar, Saggart & Swords. There were also a few RTB cases outside Dublin in Bray, Cork City, Bettystown Co. Meath.
In total, Broadhaven has served a total of 9 eviction notices since 2022.
Since 2018, 29 tenants have fought their eviction notices from Broadhaven in the RTB.
One tenant who was being evicted in 2019 by Broadhaven & Lugus along with his wife and 9-year-old daughter told the Irish Times "I have been crying with the stress... it is impossible. These new owners, they don't see us as people. It is all money, money, profit."
Dublin evictions: ‘These new owners, they don’t see us as people’ - Irish Times
Another tenant caught up in Val Issuer DAC’s 2019 eviction spree had been living in his apartment in Grove Park, Rathmines for over 16 years when he found out the building had been sold.
Report of Tribunal Reference No: TR0919-003984 / Case Ref No: 0519-54045 - RTB
The substantial renovations started while he was still living there: as a result, the building became very unpleasant to live in: "There was no washing machine for 6 months... The heating broke in October of 2018... as a result... there was damp and mould in the dwelling... The Landlord only responded to the problem when a lady from Threshold contacted the Landlord’s agent... The Landlord’s agent provided him with plug in electric heaters [which] did not solve the problem.” Other problems that arose in the house included mice, sewage, electrical problems, leaks and massively increasing heating costs.
This tenant was ultimately evicted and flats in this property were advertised for rent in October 2024 for €1,100 -€1,450 per month, whereas in 2019 he had been paying €450. Even if he had been offered this flat back after renovations were finished, it’s unlikely this tenant could have afforded a rent increase of at least 144%.
Grove Park - Grayling Properties (archive version)
Broadhaven are not above using heavy-handed tactics, as well as bureaucratic ones.
In late 2018, they served eviction notices to several tenants in Richmond Street South. Val Issuer DAC had bought the properties, numbers 54, 55 and 56, earlier in 2018. They seem to have made very little effort to reach out to the existing tenants, giving them confusing accounts of who they should even pay their rent to. The building's maintenance was let go - the heating didn't work over the winter, the tenants had to put up "plenty of fight" before this was fixed. At least one tenant fell into rent arrears because the new landlord/letting agent didn't complete his rent supplement paperwork.
On Richmond Street South, a Row of Tenants Resist Eviction - Dublin Inquirer
At least one of the eviction notices served in late 2018 was invalid, addressed to people the tenants had never heard of. So the tenants stayed in the property.Then in May 2019, the tenants reported to the Dublin Inquirer that "men in high-vis strode through the top-floor apartment at 54 Richmond Street South with claw hammers and pried off the bathroom door, the bedroom door, and the front door."
In 2017, Broadhaven bought Leeside Apartments (the company that took ownership was Larea Fa Fund II DAC). All 23 households in the complex were given eviction notices on the grounds of substantial renovations.
Some tenants fought their evictions in the RTB. The RTB eventually sided with the landlord, but, as Cork TD Mick Barry later told the Dáil, Broadhaven "offered to keep the residents in apartments if they agreed to switch apartments within the complex, pay higher rents under the HAP [Housing Assistance Payment] scheme and sign a non-disclosure agreement."
This essentially saved the homes of the tenants, but Broadhaven were not about to lose their profits. In March 2019, Clúid Housing bought the property for €20 million. This was an excellent result for the tenants, as it means they have long-term secure tenancies with an approved housing body.
But it was also a significant profit for Broadhaven. Two years ago they'd bought the property for €7.75m and carried out renovations valued at €3 before almost doubling their money by selling for €20m.