Structured proposal for Quinn firms to be ready ‘within days’

Effort to get financial backers delayed due to sabotage, says FG councillor

A structured proposal for the former Quinn Group manufacturing companies will be ready “within days”, a director of a company set up to buy them has said.

Fine Gael councillor for Ballinamore, Co Leitrim, John McCartin, who is a director of QBRC Ltd, (formerly Quinn Business Retention Company Ltd), said the effort to get financial backers had been delayed by the campaign of sabotage against the former Quinn Group businesses.

The group, which is now called Aventas, comprises glass, cement, building materials and packaging businesses, in the Cavan/Fermanagh border area, England, and continental Europe. It has 1,190 employees in the border businesses, and 2,800 overall.

The Aventas management is working to achieve as much value as possible for international debtors who have agreed to “park” debts of €800 million while the businesses work to service further debts totalling €465 million. The Irish Bank Resolution Corporation owns approximately one-quarter of the group, but its shareholding is of little value given that the debtors have to be satisfied first.

Equity investorsThe Aventas management does not believe that the diversified industrial group need s to be retained as a unit. It believes disparate sections such as packaging and glass can be sold to equity investors or hedge funds in separate lots, and that such sales would not imperil local employment.

However Mr McCartin said QBRC wants to buy the group as a whole and retain it as a unit. He said Aventas chief executive Paul O’Brien and his team are “in a business they didn’t know before, and operating in a hostile environment”.

The other directors of the QBRC include Kevin Lunney and Liam McCaffrey, long time senior managers with the Quinn Group during the years when it was controlled by Seán Quinn.

Mr McCartin said the bid, which has the aim of re-introducing former senior management and keeping the group together, has “one commitment and seven potential funders.” A decision will be made shortly on which funder to go with.

Lazard advising
Aventas has appointed global financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard to act for it in any approaches for the former Quinn businesses. QBRC has appointed John McAlister’s ASM, of Magherafelt, Co Derry, to represent it.

Aventas management has said it is open to any offer. Mr McCartin agreed that it had not as yet shown Aventas that it had funding in place for any bid, but said this would happen soon.

The bid had “nothing whatsoever to do with Seán Quinn”, he said. The funders in discussion with QBRC were all “very well known and established and their credentials are impeccable”.

He said the group of businesses would benefit from being run by the people who put it together in the first place. “The weak hand was always fed by the strong and if you break it up, the weak hand will die,” he said.

However Aventas management’s analysis is that the greatest value is likely to be achieved from the individual units of the group, and that there are no great synergies involved.

They stress that the buyers of any business are going to want to grow them and secure local employment.

QBRC has been told what sort of offer will be needed if a bid is to be successful.