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WHEN MANY CLERYS staff turned up to work on Friday they thought they were about to be briefed on the iconic department store’s new ownership to a previously unknown company, Natrium.
Instead, they were greeted with the shock news the 150-year-old store was instead being wound up and they were all jobless – effective immediately.
As workers today took to the streets to protest the sudden closure, TheJournal.ie takes a look at the companies – and the people behind them – that were involved in the deal:
The firms
After much speculation about Clerys fate, Gordon Brothers Europe – the local restructuring arm of the Boston-based Gordon Brothers Group – announced on Friday it had completed the Clerys sale to the Natrium consortium.
That was done through the transfer of the department store’s parent company, OCS Investment Holdings.
According to the last accounts filed for that company, to the start of February last year, it had about €21.2 million of cash at hand, but debts of over €23.6 million due within 12 months.
It also had long-term debts of €20.9 million, which including bank debts of €15.6 million. Those loans were originally to fall due at the end of the year but they were extended by agreement to September 2016.
However the prime real estate site on O’Connell St and the store’s day-to-day operations were tied up in two separate forms - OCS Properties and OCS Operations.
The operations company recorded a loss of over €2 million for the previous 12 months, while the property company booked a profit of just under €5 million.
It was OCS Operations, which was set up in August 2012 when Gordon Brothers took over the business, that was put into liquidation on Friday, spelling the end for the Clerys department-store business and the jobs of the 460 workers based there.
Its last accounts, also to February last year, noted it was sitting on net current assets of over €2 million at the time and the figures were prepared on a “going-concern basis” because of the loan repayment restructure.
This should enable the company to meet its debts as they fall due,” the accounts said.
But the High Court was told on Friday it was unlikely to have enough money to make payments due as early as this week and liquidation was the best option to preserve the value of the business.
As recently as September 2013, Gordon Brothers said it wasn’t considering selling the business, with its European head Frank Morton telling the Irish Independent it was focussed on opening for Christmas after flooding hit the store.
Meanwhile OCS Properties, also set up in August 2012 during the takeover, remains in business.
In February last year it was sitting on total assets of over €20 million. It has been suggested the store could now be turned into anything from a hotel to a luxury mall.
The people
Natrium, a joint venture between the firms D2 Private and funds controlled by London-based Cheyne Capital Management, has yet to file any accounts as it was only incorporated two weeks ago. Cheyne also has offices in New York, Switzerland and Bermuda.
Natrium’s directors are Deirdre Foley, 43, John Skelly, 47, and Ronan Daly, 48, who all have addresses listed in Dublin.
The two men are the directors of a string of other companies including several Cheyne investment funds, while UCD graduate Skelly is also the director of investment firm the Carne group, which has operations in Dublin, London, Luxembourg and the Channel Islands among other locations.
Foley has a long-running history in the Irish property industry including several years with Quinlan Private, the investment vehicle of developer Derek Quinlan.
She left the company before it began to fold under a mountain of debt during the financial crisis.
Quinlan, who left Ireland for Switzerland and then Abu Dhabi, at one stage owed Anglo Irish Bank and other lenders an estimated €3.5 billion through various arms of his empire.
Foley is now the sole owner of D2 Private, which she set up in 2005 with developer David Arnold.
It was also hit during the financial crisis as property prices plunged. The firm and a consortium of investors including former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Sean FitzPatrick lost a reported €72 million on the sale of London’s Woolgate Exchange Building in 2012.
According to D2′s website, Foley has been directly and indirectly involved in property deals worth about £3 billion.
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Having visited two of the camps, it is never to late to bring these vile creatures to justice.
Maybe the Poles would allow the trials to take place at Auschwitz.
The Hague would be better, crimes against humanity.
I think the Germans want to retain jurisdiction. Which is good.
Yeah they’ve had a great history of prosecuting ex Nazi/SS members.
Werejammin, I am not anti Jewish, and I regret that words I used have come across as such. Some of the greatest men and women that history has produced in fields of Science, medicine , psychology, and other arts have been Jewish , all of whom I admire with the greatest respect. Those that seem to be at the forefront or spokes-people of agencies seeking justice for victims of the holocaust are also those who support the Israeli policy of the genocide of the Palistinian people. This is the hypocracy which angers me.
There is no genocide of Palestinians, except in the minds of the BDS and some Islamic governments who would love to wipe Israel from the map. The hypocrisy is all on their side. Any mention from them about Egypt filling in all the tunnels to Gaza, closing the border and creating a buffer zone. No, not a word. Yet Israel supplies Gaza with thousands of tonnes of materials each week. Any mention of the Palestinian camps in Syria which are under constant attack? Nope, you won’t see any flotillas heading there where they would be sunk on sight. Arabs mingle freely in Israel, are in the Parliament, there was even an Arab judge heading the trial of the former president yet the BDS still try to claim apartheid even though it’s been condemned by numerous South Africans who have suffered real apartheid. At the border into Palestinian areas there are warnings to Israelis that they may not enter, they would likely be murdered if they did. Now that is hypocrisy.
Back on topic it doesn’t matter who is pushing for justice, these psychopaths murdered jew, gay, roma with no regrets. No matter what age they should have to face court for their crimes.
I absolutely agree with you “werejammin” except nobody is chasing the Jews who are committing genocide on the Palistinian people right NOW. The Jews are playing the holocaust card at every instance for their own selfish reasons and very little to do with actual justice. While the Jewish State murders Palistinian people on a daily basis, they should all keep their crocodile tears to themselves. And of course as predicted, I’ve just been accused of being anti-Jewish for pointing out the hypocrisy of those who keep playing the holocaust card ad nauseam for their own selfish financial/Political advancement.
Are you for real?
Referring to the ciminality of the Netentyahu government in Israel as ‘the Jews’ makes as much sense as referring to the criminality of the Mugabe government as ‘the Blacks’. I suggest you cop yourself on, because you are most certainly coming across as anti-Jewish, whether intentionally or not.
So you attack Jews ,glorify the Holocaust,pick only the only Jewish Minister we have and then like so many people who claim it’s all about the Palestinians. You can’t even SPELL their nationality correctly.
Selfish political advancement ?? Says a lot about your warped mindset.
Tristan, this is a article about German prosecutors going after Germans who committed war crimes. It’s you who is playing the race card by going after Israel.
That’s the problem with all you pro Israeli people all anyone needs to do is mention the word “Jew”and you open yourself for you lot to say your anti Jewish.why can’t we criticise israel without being accused of being against Jews?its very strange
Edward the article is about the Holocaust not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Claiming the Journal is run by Zionists and blah blah naturally comes off as anti-Semitic. The other day a commenter on here was ranting about how “negroes” and Jews are the “biggest” racists. An anti-Israel activist last week defended his supporters chanting “kill the Jews”. He claimed its not to be taken “literal”….And they claim they have nothing against Jews. When Ian Paisley claims the “Romanists” control the media. He’s not anti-Catholic and anti-Irish??? You’re nutcase friend also denied the Holocaust happened.
What people tend to not realise is that besides the 6 million people of the Jewish faith almost 6 million more poor souls perished during the Holocaust. The horrible destruction of people began in October 1939 with T4 Aktion, the murder of approx. 200,000 mentally and physically handicapped people, who were classed as a burden on German society, the list was then expanded as deemed necessary to include Jews, Slavs, Roma, Shinti, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Homosexuals, Communist Commissars, Russian POW’s, Political prisoners, Freemasons, and any others deemed undesirable at a whim until the final total was almost 12 million.
While I have sympathy for the plight of the Palestinian people I find it disgusting that certain neo-nazi and some pro Palestinian groups think that they can use these crimes as some kind of political football to score points against the current Israel government and its settlement policies.
The German people are currently going through a process of facing up to and dealing with the painful event of their history post WW1 that includes the events of WW2, Nazism, Communism and Re-unification and has nothing to do with current events in the Middle East.
Who’s my nutcase friend?are you suggesting I’m anti Semitic?you don’t know noting about me to be honest I hate any murderers of any race or religion.the point I was trying to make was if you don’t like the way israel is being run as a country I’m I anti Jewish?if I don’t like the way Syria is being run am I anti muslim?or Ireland am I anti catholic?it seems to me from previous comments on the journal that if you say something about Israel not Jews your automatically classed as a jew hater.in regards to that person you said made racist comments about other races I did not see he’s comments so I can’t comment on it but if he did make them comments he should be removed from the journal.
You should check out the KKK’s website. You’re comments along with Tristan’s are identical to what they say. They are pro-Hamas naturally. I live in the Southern US. They also burn Israeli flags at their rallies and wave Palestinian flags.
@Tristan Alvin H. Rosenfeld notes that today’s anti-Semitism has transcended its old meaning so today:
“It is now globalised, leaping effortlessly across borders; is promoting Jews as poisoners (a stereotype of old according to Rosenfeld), accused of contaminating the atmosphere itself (instead of water wells) or targeting DNA; is rising among Muslims, attributing this Muslim anger towards Israel for its treatment of Palestinians and this anger being rooted in Muslim culture; and, the most impassioned changes leveled against the Jews involves vicious accusations against the Jewish state… anti-Zionism, in fact, is the form that much of today’s anti-Semitism takes, so much that some now see earlier attempts to rid the world of Jews finding a parallel in present-day desires to rid the world of a Jewish state” (2006: p. 7-8).
Rosenfeld also points out that compared to the truly horrendous crimes committed by other nation-states – think Sudan, Cambodia, Slobadan Milosevic’s Serbia, or Augusto Pinochet’s Chile – Israel’s record actually looks relatively good (2006: p 11)
The German people are currently going through a process of facing up to and dealing with the painful event of their history post WW1 that includes the events of WW2, Nazism, Communism and Re-unification and has nothing to do with current events in the Middle East.
More like being reminded at every available opportunity by the rest of the world about it.
This operation last chance is hopefully the last of it,that most of that generation will have died off from old age or will be dead soon from the same cause.Maybe then the Germans can start to look at this history abit more closely and not be branded Neo nazi revisionists at every turn too.
Simon
Are you a David Irving fan then?
Excellent news. Even if it took the German Justice system 68 years to take action
Round ‘em up and gas them all…
What send them to Syria?
How about an article on mary elmed, the irish lady who saved jews and others from the camps. She was recently honoured as’righteous’ by yad vashem, the only irish person to receive this honour.
Interested to read more, but can’t find any mention of her on the Yad Vashem list of righteous. Do you have a link?
Ken, Monsignor Hugh O`Flaherty was also honoured as Righteous Among the Nations.
Actually no he wasn’t, their is no concrete evidence he saved jewish lives unfortunately just escaped pows.
Found an IT article on Mary Elmes. Interesting lady.
Would have been easier to find if you’d spelt her name right though :-P
This is ridiculous…. If this is the cast then every soldier in a war should face charges
Tony Blair and George Bush should face charges. War criminals
Visited this place few years ago. Wouldn’t go back again as once was enough for me.
Never too late to be held accountable. Here’s hoping they get a fair trial and if found guilty get suitable punishment. They will be dealt with in a civilised and kind manner unless those who were sent to their deaths in the gas chambers.
Sorry unlike those they sent to the gas chamber .
Life sentences for the lot of them. 18 months to think about what they’ve done.
Does this really require a trial with the years of appeals etc? Surely if you can prove they were guards at the camp then by definition they are guilty at least of accessory to mass murder. Lock em up before they get a chance to die of natural causes.
Visited Auschwitz and Birkenau. Anyone visiting Krakow should do these trips.
As for the soldiers. We all know what should be done to them.
Indeed and go with a very open mind too…
Finally ! But still loads of other war criminals enjoying free life.
Gas the evil ba5tards
That’s just a stupid comment will that bring back the six million innocent souls?
Could I ask this question without seeming to deny what happened in Auschwitz. 30 people are to be investigated for being camp personnel. How many of these former camp personnel were simply stationed there as members of the German army. I ask this as it would appear that from the article that merely being camp personnel equals guilty of crimes. Perhaps there were also just witnesses to the dreadful things that occurred there.
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