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What's in the Sunday papers?
07 March 2010
PROPERTY
Fleming group
The Sunday Business Post reports that the insolvent Fleming Group has total liabilities of €1.81 billion, more than €800 million higher than previously stated and also reveals that the group’s owners, John and Mary Fleming, are personally liable for hundreds of millions of euro in debts because a number of their key companies had unlimited status.
The High Court had originally been told that the group had liabilities of €1 billion but a report by KPMG, which ACC commissioned as part of its opposition to the Fleming group rescue plan, revealed that the group’s total liabilities stood at €1.81 billion when contingent liabilities were included.
The group, one of the largest development firms in the country, collapsed last week after the Supreme Court refused to approve a rescue plan. The High Court had originally approved the scheme but ACC appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. The five-judge court unanimously overturned the decision and lifted court protection.
Three key companies in the Fleming Group collapsed into liquidation because of the decision and their lenders are now poised to appoint receivers to various assets over the coming days.
ACC has already installed a receiver over Tivway while it is understood that AIB, Bank of Scotland (Ireland) and KBC are also preparing paperwork for further appointments.
Lark Developments
Nationalised lender Anglo Irish Bank has seized control of the assets of property company Lark Developments owned by Roscommon developer Tony Murray, according to the Sunday Business Post.
Billy O’Riordan, a parter with PricewaterhouseCoopers, was appointed receiver over Lark and a related company M&M Construction following a review of the company’s financial performance. The bank has taken possession of a number of assets including a housing development in Co. Meath and a development site in Nurney, Co. Kildare.
Lark was one of the first companies to apply for examinership and in 2001 it petitioned the High Court to grant court protection. The company currently has debts of some €12.1 million and owes money to AIB, Bank of Ireland and EBS as well as Anglo Irish Bank.
Tom O’Callaghan
The Sunday Times reports that Limerick businessman Tom O’Callaghan is in dispute with Bank of Scotland (Ireland) over its appointment of a receiver to more than 30 of his properties.
While no legal proceedings have been initiated, both O’Callaghan and an agent appointed by the receiver have been trying to collect rent from tenants.
Sources told the Sunday Times that the receiver, Martin Ferris of Ferris & Associates, has threatened O’Callaghan with injunctive proceedings.
Bank of Scotland (Ireland) appointed the receiver over more than 20 of O’Callaghan’s residential properties and eight commercial properties over a €13 million debt.
O’Callaghan, who was an unsuccessful Fianna Fail candidate in the local elections last June and had established an extensive business portfolio in Limerick, has also complained formally to Bank of Scotland (Ireland) about practices around a loan advanced to him by a senior lender in its Limerick office. The lender no longer works for the bank and O’Callaghan’s claims are being investigated.
HOSPITALITY
Tweedy pub group
Bank of Ireland is expected to appoint Simon Coyle of Mazars as receiver to the Tweedy pub group after the High Court last week rejected a rescue deal put forward by examiner Kevin Hughes, according to the Sunday Times.
The scheme of arrangement presented by Hughes would have seen the McLoughlin family, owners of the Dinn Ri hotel in Carlow, take over the group and would have wiped out the shareholdings of Bob Tweedy, the group’s founder.
But on Friday, Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan rejected the scheme saying it was not certain that the companies had a reasonable chance of survival because of their exposure to a number of personal guarantees.
Bob Tweedy had opposed the examinership’s scheme and wanted it rejected on a number of grounds. While the Sunday Times reports that local businessman William Bolster, who backed a rival rescue plan proposed by Tweedy, is expected to seek a meeting with the receiver to discuss the possibility of buying the group.
RETAIL
Hughes & Hughes
The Sunday Independent reports that inside sources at Hughes & Hughes bookseller are blaming the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) for the collapse of the chain. Ulster bank was prepared to continue to support the business, according to the Sunday Independent, if the DAA had made concessions on the rent but when the DAA refused, the company went into receivership.
According to insiders, Hughes & Hughes had been in discussions with the DAA for six months and the chain had argued that the rent and charges on their shops in Dublin Airport should be reduced in line with the fall in passenger number. But last Tuesday the receiver, David Carson of Deloitte, was contacted by the DAA and told that the Eason book chain would take over the Hughes & Hughes airport outlets.
A spokesman for the DAA said that the organisation was “extremely flexible in its dealings with Hughes & Hughes in recent months” and offered the bookseller “significant assistance in trying to overcome the difficulties that it was experiencing in its non-airport business”.
HEALTHCARE
Aras Ui Dhomhnaill
Dutch-owned ACCBank has appointed a receiver to the Aras Ui Dhomhnaill nursing home in Milford. Co. Donegal in an effort to secure funds which it had advanced to the development.
The Sunday Business Post reports that the development is owned by tax-break investors.
Mulroy Healthcare will continue to run the nursing home but the bank will now become the landlord.
The consortium of investors was put together by Kenneth McMoreland, a partner in Sligo accountancy firm McMoreland Duffy Rouse.
PRINTING
Wood Printcraft
George Maloney of Baker Tilly Ryan Glennon has been appointed interim examiner to printing company Wood Printcraft. Directors of the company, which employs around 100 people, said they were trying to secure working capital “that may be necessary in the current economic climate”.
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