Building firm lays off staff and shuts outlet

STAFF AT construction and property group P Elliott were told yesterday that they were being laid off while a hardware and households goods store at the company’s headquarters was also shut.

The management of the group – which is in talks with its banks – told staff of the lay-offs at a meeting at its headquarters on Cavan’s Dublin Road.

A number of staff are being kept on at its head office, but the bulk of the group’s employees were let go yesterday, and paid part of what the group owes them.

Elliott met with representatives of the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) recently following calls from a number of subcontractors to the organisation who complained that they had not been paid, or were facing delays in receiving money due to them.

The group has also pulled out of a joint venture to build two schools in Dublin and Meath for the Department of Education.

The venture’s other partner, Sammon, is taking over full responsibility for that deal, which is worth about €20 million in total.

Staff were reportedly told yesterday that the group is in dispute with the State over final payments for the construction of the Department of Defence building in Newbridge, Co Kildare.

Elliott says that there is still between €4 million and €5 million due to the group, but the Office of Public Works (OPW), which commissioned the building, is said to be disputing this and argues that the final amount due is less than €100,000. The OPW refused to comment yesterday.

It had also been working on a site at St Patrick’s teacher training college in Drumcondra on the northside of Dublin.

Elliott’s main financiers are Ulster Bank and Bank of Scotland Ireland. It also owes money to Bank of Ireland and Anglo Irish Bank, which are part of the bank rescue process run by the State’s assets agency, Nama.

The agency is understood to have taken over these loans, and the assets and security involved are said to be good quality.

Elliott is involved in both contracting – designing and building for other parties – and property development.

The group bought The Irish Times' old headquarters on D'Olier Street in Dublin in 2006 and recently completed its redevelopment as a mixed commercial and retail complex.

The Elliott family controls the business through an unlimited entity, P Elliott Group, and Elliott Holdings Ltd.

The most recent accounts for Elliott Holdings show that it lost €28 million in 2009. Its operations actually made a €10 million profit, but €35 million worth of write downs, related to its own assets and those of related parties, and a €3 million loss from a joint venture, left it in the red.

The accounts show that other group companies owed Elliott Holdings a total of €65 million at the end of 2009. A large number of these businesses were involved in property investment and development.

Elliott Holdings accounts show that members of the family loaned a total of €3.5 million to the company in 2009.

The company employed over 230 people at that point, but the number of workers in the group has fallen in recent years as it sub-contracted out a large proportion of its work.

No-one from the group was available for comment yesterday.

HOME TRUTH: FEAR FOR CUSTOMERS AND SUPPLIERS

IT IS called Homemakers, but the home furnishings and garden store in Cavan town was yesterday only home to disgruntled customers with seemingly useless gift vouchers and a number of anxious suppliers who said they wanted their stock returned to them.

Since early yesterday, the rumours had been growing about the store as a result of concern about the future of P Elliott, the well-known construction group.

The group acquired the business, on the Dublin Road in Cavan town, in January 2006, and developed a new Homemakers store comprising 4,180sq m (45,00sq ft) of retail space and 3,250sq m (35,000sq ft) of warehousing, which opened in March 2008. According to local people yesterday, it shut its doors at 6pm on Wednesday and people were told "it was shutting".

A substantial number of people, believed to be subcontractors, called to the P Elliott company offices in Cavan yesterday morning. They were stoney-faced and tight-lipped as they left the building. All were holding brown A4 envelopes with white address labels on. None would say what news they had been given.

Back at the store, there was constant people and vehicular traffic. "I'm waiting for my friend," said the driver of a truck. "He has €58,000 worth of stock inside there and he wants to get it back. It's worth a lot more to him to have it than leaving it inside there."