Mercantile Group holds onto 7 outlets

The courts dispute between publican Frank Gleeson and his US-Irish fellow shareholders in Ardan Advisory - JT Mangan (Capital Bars) LLC and Danu Advisory Partners - over his role at Ardan Advisory, the holding company for the merged Mercantile/Capital pub, hotel and restaurant chain, has been called off with the Group’s assets to be divided up.

Two of the sets of court proceedings involving the former Mercantile Group Chief Executive, who held 30% of Ardan Advisory and Ardan’s majority shareholders were struck out by the High Court recently while a €4.6 million third set of proceedings involving Frank Gleeson and EMI-MR Investment LLC was also resolved.

Danu Advisory Partners consists of Leonard Ryan and Michael O’Rourke who co-founded the Setanta Sports group in their 20s along with business partner Mark O’Meara.

As a result of the agreement the 11 venues in the Group are to be divided up with Frank Gleeson taking over the Green Hen and Marcel’s restaurants as well as the recently-opened Farrier & Draper pub in Dublin’s Powerscourt Townhouse Centre. He also retains his own two outlets, namely The Bottom of the Hill in Finglas which he has leased out and Gleeson’s in Mulhuddart, now closed.

Another outlet in the merged group, East Side Tavern on St Stephen’s Green, is to be reassigned to another operator.

The agreement means that the Mercantile Entertainment Group (Danu Advisory Partners and JT Mangan (Capital Bars) LLC) retains major venues such as Whelan’s, The George, Pichet’s, Opium, the Mercantile Hotel and Café en Seine as well as NoLita (formerly Soder+Ko).

Most of these venues will now be subject to a revamp of more than €20 million with €15 million to €16 million being spent on the Mercantile Hotel, €2 million on Opium and €3 million to be spent renovating Café en Seine.

Together, Whelan’s and The George will be renovated to the tune of around €1 million in all.

The group only recently completed a €2 million upgrade of nearby NoLita.