Vincent Browne among ‘Sunday Business Post’ creditors likely to take hit

Creditors of the Sunday Business Post publisher Post Publications Ltd will be paid about €211,000 – a fraction of what they are owed – under the deal reached by the company's examiner with the buyers of the newspaper.

Contributors to the newspaper, mostly freelance journalists, are owed almost €179,000, but will receive just 15 per cent of this if the examiner’s scheme of arrangement is approved as expected at a creditors’ meeting in Dublin tomorrow.

Among individual journalists, broadcaster Vincent Browne is set to lose a five-figure sum as a result of the Sunday Business Post's financial predicament. He is owed €25,020, according to documents distributed to creditors, but is in line to receive just €3,753 of this.

Iconic Media Limited, the firm used by economist David McWilliams, is owed €13,284. Columnist Tom McGurk is owed €11,640 and the polling company Red C is owed €9,785.

Finance house Key Capital and Paul Cooke, the former managing director of the Irish Daily Star, are buying the newspaper through a vehicle called Brindisi Ltd.

Key Capital and Cooke have agreed to invest €750,000 in the newspaper, with €260,000 of this money set aside for examinership fees of €155,000 and legal fees of €105,000.

The money owed to three creditors has yet to be agreed.

Unsecured creditors are owed €2.1 million and will receive just 2.5 per cent of the sums they are due. Within this category is Irish Life, which is owed almost €2 million.

Preferential creditors are owed €288,611. Some €246,920 of this sum is due to the Revenue Commissioners for PAYE/PRSI and VAT.

Before the deal was reached, nine members of its 76 staff left under a voluntary redundancy scheme and further cuts to its operational costs are expected.