A businessman who has had several of his enterprises run afoul of the Revenue Commissioners last week applied to Dublin City Council for a ruling on whether the Abbey Hotel in the centre of Dublin can be exempt from planning permission for the purposes of turning it into yet another asylum centre.
Companies owned by Guoqing Wu, otherwise Colm Wu, owe some €1.5 million in taxes, but Wu is also the latest potential IPAS entrepreneur to secure financial backing from an Israeli company.
The application asks whether the use of the hotel “constitutes exempted development or does not constitute exempted development” for the purposes of providing “accommodation for displaced people or persons seeking international protection.”
The company which has applied for the exemption is Abbey Lane Hotel (Property) Ltd whose sole director is one Guoqing Wu, otherwise Colm Wu. That company is 100% owned by City Well, which is in turn owned by Bo Vision Capital which in turn was begat by B Vision Investment Limited.
Wu is also a director of Abbey Lane Hotel (Trading) Ltd. Both have an address on Leeson Street Lower. That company has a similar Russian doll ownership structure ultimately ending with B Vision Management – of which I could find no details.
Wu, as Colm rather than Guoqing, has four unsatisfied judgments listed against him with the Companies Registration Office. He owned, through Bo Property Vision, the Abbey Celtic Café which has been in liquidation since January 2024. That was based at 38/39 Middle Abbey Street just a short walk from Wu’s proposed IPAS centre at number 52.
Wu is also still listed as the sole owner of the Lock Keeper on the Royal Canal at Ashtown. This is through Mulligan and Haines which is currently in examinership.
An indication that this chap does not allow the grass to grow under his feet is that, while the Abbey Celtic Café was ordered to be wound up on January 18, 2024, on January 24 Wu – through Mulligan and Haines – “became involved” as sole owner of the Lock Keeper.
Wu has numerous other current or past directorships, many of them also ultimately owned directly by himself or to one of the Bo entities.
It would appear that companies controlled by Wu owe some €1.5 million in unpaid taxes to Revenue. Just last month, the Commercial Court heard allegations that “he was involved in a scheme to divert monies out of 10 companies he controlled to pay debts and obligations” – and that he had “engaged in fraudulent and/or reckless trading and had transferred assets of the companies to related companies and in some cases to himself.” Wu denies the allegations.
It will be interesting to see then if Dublin City Council respond positively to his earnest desire to secure an exemption from the normal planning procedures and be allowed to embark on a new venture in Helping. Godspeed.
Wu’s latest pitch also connects to other tentacles of the asylum accommodation industry. The hotel is registered as being owned since November 6, 2020 by Abbey Lane Hotel (Property) Ltd with an address at 9 Exchange Place in the IFSC. The mortgage on the hotel is held by Emerald Sky 2 Designated Activity Company and Lotus Decalia.
Both names are strangely close to the Emerald Sky 3 Designated Activity Company and Lotus Management, which are controlled by the Israeli owned giant MEITAV Investment House that ultimately holds the mortgage on Rawlton House which as we reported on Monday is also earmarked to become an IPAS Centre.
The holder of the mortgage on the Abbey Hotel is clearly linked to MEITAV through its address, the connection to the Lotus Investment group and several of the directors. The directors of Emerald Sky 2 are Ian Lawlor, a Lotus director – and American hedge fund operator David Grin, who has been linked to Cara Infinity which is ultimately owned by Blue Sun, a company based in Singapore which also has a piece of the mortgage on Rawlton House through Lotus Investment.
MEITAV’s majority acquisition of Lotus Investment from Grin and Lawlor was big news in Israel in October 2019 when Jewish Business News reported that “Israel-based Meitav Dash will enter the Irish property market by investing in a controlling stake in David Grin’s Lotus Investment Group.” The piece also mentions that MEITAV controlled $35 billion in assets.
Incidentally, the ultimately Israeli-controlled Lotus Investments was reported by the Irish Independent in 2019 as having already lent over €300 million to developers and others dabbling in the Dublin property market.
The Israeli connection to Lotus dates back to January 2020 with the appointment as director of one Uriel Paz with an address in Tel Aviv. Paz founded Michlol Finance and was once the CEO of the Bank of Jerusalem no less. The Bank of Jerusalem is listed by the United Nations as in breach of guidelines on Israeli commercial activity in the Occupied Territories. Avner Stepak of MEITAV was appointed to the board of Lotus Investments on October 31, 2024.
There are several intriguing questions that spring to mind even on a cursory perusal of the background and the people involved in seeking to turn yet another former hotel into a refugee accommodation centre. Not least how Mr. Wu manages to duck and dive his way from all sorts of adventures into the biggest one of all. And with the backing of the second largest Israeli investment fund, to boot.
There is certainly plenty of our money to go around. This week in the Dáil the new Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth Norma Foley revealed that for the first time ever that last year spending on asylum accommodation through IPAS and related costs (not including spend on Ukrainians) came to just over one Billion Euro.
That was up by one third on the €652 million paid out in 2023 and is over seven times the €129.4 million that was paid out in 2019, just before the Covid panic and prior to the ongoing, massive surge in asylum applications. .