Irish golf equipment business Clubs to Hire wound up its Spanish operation last year leaving more than €340,000 in liabilities, while its UK subsidiary has received a strike-off warning from the UK companies registrar.
Dublin-based Clubs to Hire rents golf clubs and equipment to tourists travelling to play at courses in Europe and the Middle East.
The group last year asked a Malaga court to put its Spanish subsidiary, Clubs 2 Hire SL, in voluntary liquidation after the company was unable to cover some of its liabilities.
Documents filed with the court show that Clubs 2 Hire SL’s liabilities totalled €387,000. These included a €125,000 debt to Spanish airports operator, Aena, from which it rented retail premises, and a €200,000 loan due to Banco Santander.
The Spanish government guaranteed 75 per cent of the bank loan through a Covid support scheme meant to aid businesses hit by the pandemic.
A subsequent auction of Clubs 2 Hire SL’s assets, mostly golf clubs and equipment, realised €43,025, leaving net liabilities of more than €343,000.
Clubs 2 Hire SL laid off staff and in July 2022 closed premises, including a shop in Malaga Airport from where customers could collect clubs and equipment that they had booked. The liquidation process ran from April to September.
While the liquidation was ongoing, Clubs to Hire continued to provide equipment to customers in Spain.
The group continues to trade there, with its website offering its services at Alicante, Malaga, Palma de Majorca and the Canaries. Irish people holidaying and golfing in Spain account for around 40 per cent of the business it does in the country.
Staff now deliver clubs to clients’ accommodation. The group recently said that it had opened a depot at La Cala Mijas, close to courses on the Costa del Sol.
Meanwhile, the UK Registrar of Companies warned on January 24th that the group’s Belfast-based subsidiary, The Golf Outlet Ltd, would be struck off and dissolved in two months. Accounts for the business are overdue.
Efforts to contact Clubs to Hire founder and chief executive Tony Judge were not successful. Spanish court documents name co-founder Gerard McKernan as a director. However, he left the business and resigned all group directorships in 2019.
He did not comment and it is understood that he has taken legal advice about the failure to confirm his resignation to the Spanish companies register. Irish and UK records confirm his resignation from the businesses in both jurisdictions in 2019.
Clubs to Hire’s initial successes earned it slots in the finals of the Ernst & Young - now EY - Entrepreneur of the Year in 2014 and subsequently in The Irish Times Innovation Awards.
Former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley was its brand ambassador for a period, but that relationship ended in 2015.
Mr Judge is a former director of golf at Mount Juliet and ran St Margaret’s Golf and Country Club. He founded Clubs to Hire to rent equipment at popular resorts for less than the amount that airlines charged to fly it there.
The business trades in the Republic, UK, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Greece, Indonesia, Dubai and Thailand.
