Fruit of the Loom talks on departure terms

Intensive negotiations are continuing between three Fruit of the Loom directors and the company over their threatened redundancy this weekend. The three who include managing director, Mr Willie McCarter, sales director, Mr John McCarter, and finance director, Mr Seamus McEleney, are understood to be have rejected the latest settlement offer from the company.

This is the second package offered to the directors by Fruit of the Loom to leave the company and was made following their High Court application this week to block their threatened redundancy. While the application was adjourned for two weeks, it is expected that the three directors will be able to reach an agreement with their US employers on a severance deal before then.

Sources have indicated that there is still some distance between the two sides to be breached before a final financial settlement can be brokered. There seems to be little indication that the three men will remain with the company with bulk of the ongoing wrangling now about the amount of compensation they are entitled to.

A third member of the McCarter family, Mr Andrew McCarter, is to take over the running of the Irish operations following any settlement.

He, together with the only other remaining Irish director, Ms Mary Cullen, will then assume much of the day-to-day running of the Donegal and Derry companies while reporting back to its European and US headquarters.

Mr Willie McCarter is the chairman of the International Fund for Ireland and has been managing director of Fruit of the Loom's Irish operations since the 1980s. The three McCarter brothers had all previously worked in the family clothing business in Buncrana which was taken over by the US clothing group in 1987.