Irish property tycoon commits suicide

Irish police believe a well-known Dublin businessman, with extensive property interests in Britain, has killed himself.

The body of property tycoon Patrick Rocca was found at his home at Porterstown, Castleknock, in west Dublin, yesterday morning.

He was found with a single gunshot wound to the head and a firearm nearby has been taken away by forensic investigators, but Gardai have said they are satisfied nobody else was involved.

Mr Rocca, 41, had a fortune which was put at €500million (£462.9m) in 2007 and he is thought to have completed 20 property deals in the UK during the last few years, worth about €300million in total, including €100 million for a distribution centre for retailer Argos in Bedford.

Other UK property assets owned by his company, Accorp Properties, include Lloyds Chambers on Portsoken Street in the City, Quadrant House in Sutton, Surrey; Norwich Union House in Sheffield, and Crystal Court near London’s City Airport.

He kick-started his UK property portfolio in 2005 with the €17million acquisition of two office blocks near Gatwick Airport.

Father-of-three Mr Rocca and his wife, Annette, were well-known on the Dublin social circuit and big donors to charities.

His sister Michelle, a former Miss Ireland, is partner of acclaimed singing legend Van Morrison.
Mr Rocca’s business career began in 1983 when he joined the family business, Rocca Tiles, which had been set up by his father in Dublin in 1976.

He and his father, also called Patrick, expanded the business rapidly during the 1990s and Mr Rocca took full managerial control when his father retired in 1995.

The company was sold in 2000 but the family retained a 20 per cent interest — only to see a receiver appointed to the business and its sister company, Tilebusters, in 2002.

There is speculation in Irish business and media circles today that Mr Rocca, who holidayed in Marbella and who bought a Sikorsky helicopter in November before upgrading to a Jet Ranger, may have lost a substantial sum in Anglo-Irish Bank — which was nationalised by the Irish Government late last week.
A number of well-known business personalities have recently taken their own lives.

German billionaire Adolf Merckle killed himself two weeks ago, after losing a fortune by wrongly short-selling shares of Volkswagen, while French investment manager Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, killed himself before Christmas after putting £1billion into fraudster Bernard Madoff’s scheme.