Close to half a million pounds is owed to unsecured creditors of Braycot Foods, the Co Wicklow-based `Jumblies' biscuit manufacturers, which went into liquidation on March 31st, with the loss of 29 jobs. In total, the company owes £554,000 to creditors, of which £109,000 is owed to preferential creditors.
These are the employees, owed £58,000, and the Revenue Commissioners, owed more than £50,000 as a preferential creditor. The Revenue is owed a further £39,000 in an unsecured capacity, according to a statement of affairs presented at yesterday's creditors' meeting. Unsecured creditors are owed a total of £445,187. The statement of affairs says that the estimated realisable value of the company's assets are £208,296. It thus has a total deficiency of £346,314 according to a Statement of Affairs issued yesterday. After the secured creditors are paid, this would leave close to £99,000 for the unsecured creditors, or just about 22p in the £1.
The managing director, Mr Gerry Crowley, who took over the company from the IAWS group in May, 1995, along with his associates, Mr Chris Hancock, Mr Paddy Regan and Mr Pat Tuttle, told yesterday's creditors' meeting he was unaware that accounts had not been filed at the Companies Office, after he took over the business.
A spokesman for the Revenue Commissioners at the meeting commented on "the dearth of information in the Companies Office". Under the Companies Act, Braycot did not have to file separate accounts while it was a subsidiary of Shamrock Foods, which, in turn, was owned by IAWS. Last September, Braycot was fined £1,200 by the Revenue for failing to lodge P35 returns. Mr Crowley, of Crowley & Associates, personnel and industrial relations consultants, Cork, said the company was acquired for £100,000 from the IAWS group and he subsequently invested £50,000 in it. "I am just extremely disappointed. We, in the past three years, put an awful lot of effort into trying to resuscitate the company," he said after the meeting.
The company broke even in the first 11 months of its operation under Mr Crowley, but had losses of £260,000 for the year to April, 1997, and of £130,000 for the past year.
The liquidator, Mr Tom Kavanagh, appointed yesterday to wind up Braycot Foods, said he hoped to offer the business as a going concern to a prospective buyer.
