Receiver appointed to Superquinn
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Complainer
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Today's Indo reports the sale price as 'well over €100m', but you're right insofar as we don't know the actual figures. However, given that the whole purpose of the prepack recievership (as confirmed by Andrew Street on the news yesterday) was to allow the business to walk away from the property debts, there is undoubtedly some degree of loss, let's call it €x million.
Given the rushed prepack recievership, how can we have any confidence that €x million was the smallest possible loss to the State? Why did we allow Superquinn to negotiate a deal that should have been negotiated by the banks and their reciever?
The independent were reporting €100m yesterday. Today it is €200m!
http://www.independent.ie/national-...as-euro200m-for-struggling-chain-2825887.html
There is no way Superquinn did this deal without the banks involvement. The banks held charges over all the properties that were sold so there was no deal without the banks. I think as mentioned above, there is a certain amount of a balancing act between keeping losses at a minimum and destroying a business with 3000 employees.
No and I never said that. I am not sure what the point of your question is.
Brendan Burgess
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Hi Joe
There is no legal entity called "Superquinn".
There may have been a company called Superquinn Ltd owned by Fergal Quinn. He sold the property and the business and the trade name to a new company Select Retail Holdings Ltd
This company borrowed the money to buy the assets
So a receiver has been appointed to this company.
The headline on this thread and in the media is not correct. a receiver has not been appointed to a brand name. (By the way, it could theoretically be correct in that receivers are appointed over assets, rather than companies). However, any ire should be reserved for Select Retail Holdings Ltd and not for Fergal Quinn for selling to them or for Musgraves for buying from them.
Brendan
Brendan,
A Receiver has been appointed to Superquinn, an unlimited company which is owned by two entities - Superquinn (Manufacturers) Limited and Tokad Company ( another unlimited company)
Tokad Company is owned by Select Retail Holdings and Superquinn (Manufacturers) Limited AND has had a receiver appointed also.
Select Retail Holdings has also had a receiver appointed to it.
It appears that all properties and land are in the name of Superquinn (an unlimited company) and mortgages have been put against the company showing this.
Complainer
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At the time that I wrote, the reported investment by Musgraves was €200m for an annual before interest and tax of EUR8.5m (your figure), so the payback would have been 23+ years - which doesn't add up at all.
I do not believe the EUR200m figure. Also, your 23 years calculation ignores a number of factors including the obvious potential for cost savings and the impact of receivership.
In any event, my point still stands. There was simply too much debt in the company. Even assuming Superquinn (a retailer that has seen its market share fall from 9% to 6%, operating at the ‘higher end’ of the market in difficult economic conditions) generates double the margin of Musgraves (a solid operator with more than 20% share) the company would just about be able to meet interest on its rumoured debt of EUR400m but not be able to reduce that burden in any meaningful way.
What is your basis for saying:
In any event, my point still stands. There was simply too much debt in the company. Even assuming Superquinn (a retailer that has seen its market share fall from 9% to 6%, operating at the ‘higher end’ of the market in difficult economic conditions) generates double the margin of Musgraves (a solid operator with more than 20% share) the company would just about be able to meet interest on its rumoured debt of EUR400m but not be able to reduce that burden in any meaningful way.
What is your basis for saying:
Complainer
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It is indeed a simplistic calculation. Today's reports suggest that the debt was €275m, so obviously the cost of repayment would be less than your original estimates.
But why was it 'Superquinn doing a deal with the bank's involvement'. Should it not have been the other way round? Surely the existing owners and management team were conflicted in this matter? Let's take a hypothectical situation relating to any business in this scenario, whereby the management team is looking at two bids;
Bid A - €100m and keep management team in place
Bid B - €120m and replace existing management team
Which bid do you think will be nutured and supported to fruition by management?
The owners were irrelevant to this. They don't benefit at all. The banks get all the proceeds and then more. Not sure what the management team of the superquinn business have to do with it. This was clearly driven by the banks wanting to protect their loans.
You can look at hypothetical situations all day long and discuss the rights and wrongs of each but where do you pick up that SQ were calling the shots with the banks going along meekly? From what I've read over the past couple of days it was very much the banks in the driving seat. Again from today's Irish Times:
"The other option considered was examinership. This would have involved Superquinn getting High Court protection from its creditors, meaning the banks would have lost any real control over what happened next." The banks called in the receivers so they could maintain control and it was the receivers that decided that the bid should go ahead.
"In the end, its banks decided a receivership offered them the best way of separating the trading business from the property loans, and selling it with the aim of recovering some of their debt."
And
"Both Mr Street and Musgrave chief executive Chris Martin confirmed yesterday that preliminary talks between Musgrave, the banks and KPMG, which was about to be appointed receiver, opened late last week." So the talks were between Musgrave, the banks and the receiver - not a vested-interest SQ person in sight...
Complainer
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Listen to what Andrew Street said on the 6-1 news last night. He gave a clear indication that Superquinn controlled the process.
Why would the banks have lost control in an examinership? Surely the purpose of the examinership would be to explore all options to get the business back on track (i.e. repaying the existing debts).
You don't believe that a deal was done in talks that 'opened late last week' surely? This deal has been in progress for a long, long time - long before the banks and KPMG got involved.
As I understand it 275m refers to the BoI/ AIB/ NIB facility, not total debt.
I still do not understand how you came to the conclusion that
Could you elaborate a little on your thinking?
I still do not understand how you came to the conclusion that
Could you elaborate a little on your thinking?
No - that would be you...
Musgrave and other Irish and international buyers have been sniffing around SQ for months (years...) and I'm sure the main due diligence was done long before last week, undoubtedly facilitated and guided by SQ's management but when it came to the time to do an actual deal, the real interested parties (primarily the banks) had to become involved and negotiate a deal that they could live with.
I
intheknow
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Superquinn was in trouble when feargal Quinn sold in 2005 and out of the €400m paid to the quinns they had to pay the debts owed by SQ then. When SRH was put together they bought the SQ property and kept superquinn as a going concern with the plan to try and make some changes and then sell the SQ brand but keeping the property. But as they tried to expand they got themselves in trouble with some (in hindsight) dodgey property buys and leases like clongriffen. Musgrave have been fishing for a while and while SRH may have tried to hang on to see if they could get a better deal the banks finally lost patience. In order for Musgraves to make a new success of SQ they had to make sure they were not left with the dodgey property and leases. But it was the unsecured creditors who have been caught in the cross fire
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My thinking was based on the reported sale figure at that time of €200m. If the business was worth that up front to Musgrave, then it would be capable of repaying its property debt over time.
Quite the opposite - what I've been saying for two days now is that this deal was largely negotiated by SQ management long before the banks got involved. SQ management should not been negotiating a deal for the taxpayer.
All true, but that doesn't answer the question of how you know it was the best deal available for the taxpayer.
The taxpayer first, then the unsecured creditors.
I don't know that this was the best deal available for the taxpayer any more than you know it wasn't the best deal available for the taxpayer. With no evidence to the contrary, I think it is a reasonable assumption that the final negotiators, the banks and the receiver, would have been pushing for the deal that cleared the most debt (why would they do otherwise?) which is most likely the best deal available to the taxpayer.
I haven't heard any other potential purchaser complaining to the press that they would have done a better deal if only they were given a chance by the mean exclusionary receiver. There's still time - the deal isn't approved yet so maybe a better deal will appear...
Thanks to RonanC for setting out the legal situation in this case. Usually nowadays several companies may be involved in a particular business. I notice 18 Receivers were appointed on the day when the superquinn connected companies were subject to the appointment of Receivers
Complainer
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The 'evidence to the contrary' is;
- the fact that the process was led and driven by SQ management
- the first-time use of the prepack recievership process in Ireland
- the absence of any competition.
The reciever's priorities will be;
1) Getting paid as receiver (which includes bringing it to a quick conclusion)
2) Establishing their reputation to get more business as receivers in the future
3) Getting the best deal for their client, the banks
but I don't see any evidence that they had anything near enough time to ensure that they got the best deal for the banks and the State.
Fair point, though perhaps the other potential buyers may well be outside the country.
There's no evidence - these are just your opinions.