Registrar warns Shelbourne firm

THE STATE’S companies registrar is threatening the firm that owns Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel with being struck off.

Shelbourne Hotel Holdings, the company set up by developers John Sweeney, Bernard McNamara, Bernard Doyle and David Courtney, has been listed for strike-off by the Companies Registration Office.

Companies are normally listed for strike-off when they have failed to file their annual returns and accounts on time.

Being struck off means that they lose the benefit of limited liability and can ultimately be dissolved; however, contracts can be enforced against them in the normal way.

They normally have to apply to the High Court to be reinstated to the register and to have limited liability restored.

A spokesman for the company yesterday said that the strike-off notice was the result of an oversight and added that the company’s returns had been made up to date.

The last set of accounts available for the company are for 2007 and were filed 12 months ago. They show that the business owed its banks €116 million at the end of that year.

The four developers bought the hotel on Stephen’s Green in Dublin’s city centre in 2005 for €140 million through a vehicle called Kantaka Enterprises.

According to Kantaka’s annual accounts for 2008, its directors decided to write off an €821,000 investment in Shelbourne Hotel Holdings as they believed it was “worthless”. Those accounts were signed at the beginning of October.

Marriott subsidiary Torriam Hotel Operating Company manages the hotel. It lost €2.9 million last year.