Hours after the sale of Clerys went through last Friday, the High Court appointed Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson of KPMG as joint provisional liquidators to the company operating Clerys, OCS Operations Ltd.

The appointment of the duo was no surprise, given the number of high-profile restructurings they have participated in over recent years.

Indeed their client list reads like a roll call of the companies that struggled in the economic downturn: Thomas Crosbie Holdings; White's Hotel in Wexford; Thomas Read Holdings, owned by hotelier Hugh O'Regan; the chain of Hughes & Hughes bookshops; Custom House Capital; Bloxham Stockbrokers; the Heritage Hotel in Portlaoise; Superquinn; share receiver to the Quinn Group; and, perhaps most notably, they were appointed, in 2013, as special liquidators of Irish Bank Resolution Corp (IBRC).

Given their extensive client list, it’s possibly no surprise that potential conflicts of interest have arisen in the course of their work, although these have always been denied. KPMG for example, was auditor to Irish Nationwide pre- crash and in their role as IBRC liquidators they opted to sue IBRC auditors Ernst & Young but not KPMG, at least not yet.

Siteserv transaction review

More recently, the duo were appointed by the Government to review the Siteserv transaction and other large sell-offs by IBRC, even though they are also acting as special liquidators.

Wallace joined KPMG in 1999 and became a partner in its financial services practice in 2004, while Richardsown joined the firm in 2000, and was appointed partner in 2013.

Restructuring is a well- remunerated role. In 2010, a court revealed Mr Wallace had charged an hourly fee of €560 for the examinership of the Capital Bars group, as it ruled the fee should be cut to €375.