The entrance to Clarke Group head office outside Lisnaskea RMG102
SOME 500 small businesses and individuals, including local suppliers of food products, were left badly out of pocket following the collapse in the summer of one of Fermanagh’s biggest employers, P. Clarke & Sons, Lisnaskea.
Hundreds are still owed £14m, and, this week, a report filed with Companies House by the administrators, BDO, held out little hope of them getting a penny back.
Indeed, the biggest creditor, Danske Bank, a secured creditor which is owed over £11m, the report states, ‘is unlikely to be discharged in full’.
Three Derrylin-based firms, Steel Solutions, Quinn Building Products and Quinn Cement, were also caught up in the net. They are owed £355,000.
Steel Solutions, Derrylin, which makes fabricated steel, is owed £230,000 and the two Quinn firms £125,000.
The figures were revealed this week after a report detailing a financial breakdown was filed by the administrators, BDO with Companies House in Belfast.
In all, some £14m is owed to 500-plus creditors, among them Danske Bank which is owed more than £11m.
The bank is a ‘secured creditor’ in that takes collateral for advancing the loan. However, the BDO report says it is ‘unlikely’ that the bank’s debt will be discharged in full and, as for the other creditors, it adds: “It is anticipated that insufficient funds will be available to pay a dividend to unsecured creditors.”
An ‘unsecured creditor’ is a creditor other than a preferential creditor that does not have the benefit of any security interests in the assets of the debtor.
A family-owned firm, P. Clarke & Sons, its trade and assets, were finally sold off as a pre-pack administration to Derry-based engineering and concrete firm, FP McCann for £3.35m.
The new owners kept on 58 of the existing staff, but some 30 jobs were lost.
At the time, P. Clarke & Sons explained that it had gone into administration for a number of reasons, listing pressure on its cash reserves, a weak euro, reduced government contracts, and several unprofitable contracts.
Gordon Best, the director of Quarry Products Association – which represents quarry owners – stated that, while the debts left behind were ‘one of the unfortunate knock-on effects’ of companies going under, the takeover by FP McCann had secured jobs.
“This lifeline is very much welcomed. It will secure employment in an area of Fermanagh which needs every job it can get.”
The administrators, BDO said they were satisfied that the best value had been obtained for the business assets of P. Clarke & Sons.
It had been taken on by the company to provide advice on insolvency prior to administration.
Many of the larger debts are with firms based in the South or in the UK, among them various construction companies.
Some are owed in excess of £100,000, and not even the taxman escaped – HMRC being left with debts of £600,000.
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