[3] During the 1980s, McKillen built up a portfolio of assets including commercial buildings, retail stores and shopping centres in Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Limerick.
He focused on buying properties with significant unrealized potential in key locations, improving them and managing and holding the assets for the long-term.
In 2015, the Qatari royal family (through Constellation Hotels, subsidiary of Qatar Holding) bought the Maybourne group for an undisclosed amount believed to be around £1.4 billion.
McKillen lined up Nobel Prize winning economist Professor Joseph Stigliz as an expert witness in the case which was unusually heard before all seven Irish Supreme Court judges.
The seven Irish Supreme Court judges unanimously ruled in McKillen's favour essentially because the decision to acquire the loans was made before NAMA had been formally established.
His Irish Supreme Court case Dellway vs NAMA is recognised as a landmark legal decision and is used internationally as an example of how Governments cannot override citizens’ rights during national emergencies.
[16][17][18][19] Paddy McKillen owns and has been developing Chateau La Coste, a biodynamic vineyard and international destination for art, architecture and natural beauty in Provence, for the past 15 years.