P Elliott enters receivership with debts of over €500m

P ELLIOTT, one of the largest construction companies in the State, has entered receivership with debts of more than half a billion euro.

Kieran Wallace and Cormac O’Connor of KPMG were appointed as receivers yesterday afternoon to P Elliott Company and a related company, Dewside Limited.

While the receivers were appointed at the instigation of the directors of the company, they will work to retrieve money on behalf of Ulster Bank.

The company’s other main creditors are Bank of Ireland, Nama (as a result of the company’s loans with Anglo Irish Bank), Bank of Scotland (Ireland) and ACC.

Sub-contractors are also significant creditors, and are owed in excess of €20 million.

The company, which employed 230 people in 2009, had a staff of between 15 to 20 working in Ireland, and employed between 20 and 30 in Britain. The Cavan-based group laid off most of its staff before Easter.

The collapse of the company will have an impact on three construction projects that were ongoing – the completion of Enniskillen Hospital in Co Fermanagh, which was a joint venture with Spanish company FCC, and two projects in Britain, including the athlete village for the Olympic Games in London.

The appointment of receivers comes after a number of customers and suppliers brought petitions before the court to wind up the group over the last few months.

On Monday, the High Court adjourned a petition seeking the winding up of the company by recruitment firm MCR Personnel, trading as the MCR group, which claims it is owed some €1.79 million by the construction firm.

Earlier this month a subcontracting firm, OMC Engineering, served a 21-day notice on the company seeking the payment of money due to it for work carried out on a number of contracts.

Two suppliers, William Cox and Oran Pre-Cast, were to have their cases to wind up the company heard in the High Court next Monday.

The Elliott group is involved in both construction contracting and property development, and also holds a number of state contracts with the Office of Public Works.

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

The most recent accounts for Elliott Holdings show that it lost €28 million in 2009. Its operations 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 other group firms owed Elliott Holdings a total of €65 million at the end of 2009.

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