Banks' response to plan for Antigen criticised

Bank of Ireland and ICC have been accused of holding to ransom a scheme to rescue the Antigen group of companies, which is said to have debts of more than £17 million (€21.6 million).

The High Court will decide today whether to approve a survival plan for the financially troubled group, which employs 310 people at a plant in Roscrea, Co Tipperary.

On Tuesday a scheme of arrangement was put before Mr Justice McCracken by the interim examiner, Mr Jason Sheehy, who was appointed to the Antigen companies last May when, as a result of the introduction of new plant and machinery, production in the manufacturing division was halted from July 2000 to April 2001. This caused severe financial problems.

Under a confidential deal concluded on Saturday last between the Antigen shareholder and the privately owned Canadian company, Mizza Pharmaceuticals, Mizza is to make a significant but undisclosed investment in Antigen's Roscrea, Co Tipperary plant, which employs 310 people. It is the sole supplier of a number of products used in critical care situations.

Under the proposed scheme of arrangement, unsecured creditors will not be paid interest but will get their money back in full over time, depending on the amount owed. Small creditors owed less than £10,000 can expect to be paid within three months, but larger creditors, such as Bank of Ireland and ICC - together owed £8.2 million - will receive staged payments over 30 months.

The only alternative to the scheme was the winding-up of the company, said Mr Bill Shipsey SC, for Mr Sheehy. Bank of Ireland and ICC have expressed reservations about the scheme and have requested it be modified to include their concerns.

Mr Richard Kennedy, manager (corporate banking) with Bank of Ireland, said that while he accepted it was not in the creditors' interest that the Antigen companies should go out of business, the bank believed the scheme was unfair to creditors in general and the bank in particular.

Mr Kennedy asked that the bank be paid the capital advanced, but also interest from the date of the appointment of the examiner in May last.

Until the loans were discharged, the bank should be paid immediately and not on a phased basis - or it should have the right to call for security in advance of any other creditor, he added.