House builders McInerney have urged a High Court judge to reconsider his refusal to approve a rescue plan for two firms in the construction group in light of what they claim is “new information”.
Mr Justice Frank Clarke had last Monday refused to confirm a scheme of arrangement for McInerney Homes Ltd and McInerney Contracting Ltd on grounds it was “unfairly prejudicial” to a syndicate of three creditor banks, Anglo Irish Bank, KBC and Bank of Ireland, which between them are owed €110 million by McInerney.
The banks had “a realistic prospect” of doing better under a receiver than under the proposed scheme of arrangement, he said.
Lawyers for the company today argued they had new information which justified the judge’s decision being revisited. That information was the loans obtained by McInerney from the three banks were likely to be transferred shortly to Nama, the court heard.
The banks had opposed the survival scheme advanced by examiner William O’Riordan, arguing it amounted to a significant write-down of the debt owed to them and claimed they would do better if a receiver was appointed. Their proposed receivership would take place over an 11 year period and would yield a net value of €50m, the court heard.
The information on which the company is seeking to have the matter revisited was outlined in a sworn statement yesterday from McInerney Group finance director Enda Cunningham.
John Hennessy SC, for McInerney, said the application to revisit was based on information not previously put before the court. McInerney could not indicate whether they intended to appeal Monday’s judgment to the Supreme Court until the application to revisit was dealt with, he added.
Rossa Fanning, for the banks, said it was “an understatement” that the application to revisit had come as “a surprise” to his clients. There was no merit in the application and the information put forward by McInerney was “nothing new”, he said.
Lawyers for the examiner said he was neutral on the application.
Adjourning the matter to next week, Mr Justice Clarke said he would first have to decide if he had jurisdiction to hear the application to revisit his judgement and if so, whether he should revisit it.