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THE HIGH COURT has confirmed the appointment of an examiner to the department store chain, Debenhams Retail (Ireland) Ltd.
Over 1,400 staff are directly employed while 500 concession staff and 300 cosmetics staff also work in the company’s 11 stores.
Earlier this month Debenhams Retail (Ireland) Ltd (DRIL) sought examinership because of consistent losses sustained since the recession in 2007 and after the withdrawal of support of its UK parent company, Debenhams Retail plc.
Kieran Wallace of KPMG was appointed interim examiner, after the court was informed the company has a reasonable prospect of survival if certain steps are met. The conditions include court protection and the approval of a survival scheme with the company’s creditors.
That would involve reducing costs, including rent costs which the company says are well above market rates.
Concerns
The company represented by Rossa FaningBl said it has incurred losses of €22.6m in the last three years,. While revenues have increased in 2015 and 2014 it continues to be loss making in the current year.
The matter returned before Justice Brian McGovern today, who confirmed Wallace as examiner. Mr Wallace now has up to 100 days to put together a scheme of arrangement with creditors, which if approved by the High Court will allow the company to continue to trade as a going concern.
There were no objections to the application. However, lawyers for Dooroy Ltd, the landlords of DRIL’s stores in Henry Street in Dublin and Patrick Street in Cork, expressed some concerns about the examinership.
John Gleeson SC for Dooroy Ltd said while it was not objecting to the examinership it was their case the DRIL’s parent must be involved in the process. It was the parents decision to withdraw support that caused the company “to collapse” counsel said.
Counsel said his client the UK parent had been “calling the shots” in negotiations it had about the stores and it could not stand outside the examinership process.
Counsel added Dooroy Ltd disputes suggestions made by DRIL that negotiations the parties had concerning rents had been unsuccessful.
Survival
James Doherty SC for the Examiner said that based on the information he has collated to date Wallace agrees with the independent experts view the company does have a reasonable prospect of survival.
Wallace has been in contact with important stakeholders include trade unions Impact and Siptu who represent workers at Debenhams, as well as creditors, and landlords of the company. The examiner has also been in touch with the Mandate union, which represents the majority of staff in the stores.
The company operates four stores in Dublin, two in Cork, and others in Galway, Limerick, Newbridge, Tralee and Waterford. It says it owes its parent €46m, which DRIL says is unsustainable.
The only alternative to examinership was liquidation with an estimated deficit of €264m, the court was told.
I`m surprised a bigger issue hasn`t been made out of Italy helping to bailout Spain. Really interesting video from Nigel Farrage. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/farage-euro-titanic-has-now-hit-iceberg
We’ve been totally had.
General Charles Pinckney recounts the devastating collapse of the US first fiat currency ‘The Continental’:
“With regard to Mr. Lowndes’s question ‘What harm had paper money done?’ General Pinckney answered, that he wondered that gentleman should ask such a question, as he had told the house that he had lost fifteen thousand guineas by depreciation; but he would tell the gentleman what further injuries it had done – it had corrupted the morals of the people; it had diverted them from the paths of honest industry to the ways of ruinous speculation; it had destroyed both public and private credit, and had brought total ruin on numberless widows and orphans.”
Nigel Farage explains the Spanish bailout
Different scenario IMF not involved at present.austerity measures are having a. Big effect in Spain especially on Youth Unemployment 50% and. More in some places. Unemployment needs to be tackled across the whole EU and The UKIP group have always been negative towards ANY solution . Farage is a fine speaker but so was Hitlernn
It really is long passed the time to see “The Markets”, “The IMF”, “The European Central Bank”, “The ratings Agencies” and the rest of the leeching commercial banks for what they really are. These slumdogs are really the heart of the problem. If you take all of these out of the equation, the problems disappear. They are of no real use to anyone accept themselves. They make nothing and contribute nothing at all to society or to human kind. They exist to fuel their own greed and create wealth out of nothing. They serve no use and have no industrial endeavour that forwards mankind in any way what so ever.They are indeed a horrible boil on the arse of humanity as are the people who work in them…… We either deal with boil and lance it or we continue down this horrible route which does nothing for Europe, Its citizens, Its history, Its future or its lofty ideals….. Can we just come together as a European society and deal with this parasitic cesspit of undesirables once and for all…… There you go rant over.
Well said. Why must joe average sustain a parasite industry which contributes nothing to society.
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