The High Court has appointed an interim examiner to Fitzgerald Packaging Limited (FPL), a Limerick-based company with 100 employees, and to Fitzpatrick Cartons Limited (FCL), a wholly owned subsidiary, with a registered office at Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo, which employs 17 people.
On the application of Mr Michael Collins, for the company, Ms Justice Carroll appointed Mr George Maloney interim examiner to the company. The judge returned the examinership petition, presented in the names of Mr Iain Gilmore, managing director, and Mr Paul Meeson, the only other director of the company, to December 1st.
The court was told the companies are pursuing insurance claims for more than €9 million because of lost business connected with a fire that interrupted its production processes last year.
FPL, with an address at Gillogue Business Park, Gillogue, Limerick, manufactures corrugated paper products and was incorporated in March 1997. FCL also operates from that address.
In the petition, Mr Gilmore outlined a number of problems experienced by the company, including a complete power shutdown of all production equipment for two-and-a-half months in November 2002, due to a serious fire at an electricity distribution complex close to the Gillogue premises.
Because of concerns the company would lose customers over its interruption to business, it had purchased material on the open market to supply customers and having to pay cash represented a serious drain on cashflow.
The company was processing a claim under its insurance policy regarding the fire but no payment was envisaged before the end of this year, Mr Gilmore said.
Some of the costs and losses might have to be dealt with by insurers acting on behalf of Shannon Free Airport Development Company (SFADCO). A claim for some €9.2 million had been made against SFADCO.
Mr Gilmore said he believed the business of FPL and FCL was healthy and viable, and both had a reasonable prospect of survival. The trading losses due to the power shut-down had placed a crippling burden on the company. It had incurred some €2.5 million trading losses in the first six months of 2003.
