DEVELOPER LIAM Carroll, seeking to avert a possible collapse of his €2.3 billion property empire, will make an appeal in the Supreme Court today for the reversal of a High Court ruling that lifted protection from creditors of his Zoe Developments group.
While not all of Mr Carroll’s commercial interests are tied up in the Zoe group, the case today will have a crucial bearing on the prospects of his entire business. AIB and the Bank of Scotland (Ireland), Zoe’s biggest creditor banks, are understood to be preparing to seek recovery of their debts if Mr Carroll’s case is unsuccessful. Zoe owes AIB €520 million and Bank of Scotland (Ireland) is owed €348 million.
The proceedings scheduled today follow a High Court ruling on Friday in which Mr Justice Peter Kelly’s refused to appoint an examiner to six companies within Mr Carroll’s Zoe group, which owes eight banks €1.2 billion.
That ruling leaves Mr Carroll’s business vulnerable to insolvency action by Dutch-owned ACCBank, the only lender to Zoe which refused to accept its survival plan to save the business by developing existing sites and selling properties over three years.
ACC had threatened to liquidate a number of companies in the business, potentially toppling the entire group, unless it was repaid debts totalling €136 million.
Mr Justice Kelly said that the group’s rescue plan was “lacking in reality”. An examinership would have given Mr Carroll 100 days’ breathing space to implement a survival plan.
Mr Justice Peter Kelly granted, “with misgivings”, a stay on his refusal pending an appeal to the Supreme Court. He said the examinership proposals were heavily dependent on a greatly improved property market which suggested the Zoe companies could turn a €1 billion deficit into a €290 million surplus within three years.
