A-listers were out in force last year when Louis Vuitton threw open the doors to its London store on New Bond Street, with Gwyneth Paltrow, Marc Jacobs and even Cherie Blair in attendance.
The shop and firm are not in trouble but the building's owner is the latest to become engulfed in Ireland's property crisis. The "bad bank" tasked with recovering property developers' debt for Irish taxpayers has given Vuitton's landlord 48 hours to repay his loans. The move came after David Daly, a low-profile developer from Malahide, County Dublin, failed to agree a business plan with the National Asset Management Agency (Nama). The agency could now go to court within days to take charge of Daly's assets in Ireland and Britain.
Land Registry papers show Daly paid £50m for part of the New Bond Street property in 2004. The deal was financed by Allied Irish Banks, one of Ireland's bailed-out banks. It is believed £65m more was spent on acquiring an adjacent building, now worth £150m or so. This is the second time Nama has moved on a developer in as many months. Last month it got administrators appointed to Ray Grehan's London portfolio which incudes the Crowne Plaza hotel in Shoreditch and two developments in the Docklands – a 28-storey block called the Forge and the City Pride pub site where a Norman Foster tower is planned.