THE cold store group Norish has completed its withdrawal from the Irish market with the sale of its cold store in Castleblayney, Co Monaghan to Molloy & Sherry for 1.65 million.
Following the disposal, Norish will have a 30 per cent stake in Lochmeen, the company set up by Molloy & Sherry to manage the cold store. The two Norish companies involved in the Castleblayney cold store are Norish (Castleblayney) and Firgonorish.
Norish (Castleblayney) had pretax losses of £3.2 million in the year, to the end of last December although this loss includes a provision of £3.5 million reflecting the writedown of the cold store to its estimated realisable value. Frigonorish made a profit of just under £96,000 in the same period.
Earlier this year, Norish sold its Eirfreeze operation Dublin to Molloy & Sherry for an effective £1.1 million and sold its 60 per cent stake in Norish (Kilkenny) to Avonmore for £100,000 plus a £766,000 dividend.
In a statement yesterday, Norish said the short term prospects for the Irish cold store market have been boosted by the BSE scare. This has led to reduced demand for beef and has led the European Commission to reopen intervention storage. Under the terms of its banking facilities, Norish is obliged to repay £2 million of its term debt and reduce its short term facilities by £750,000 by the end of the year. Norish has used £980,000 of the proceeds of the Eirfreeze and Kilkenny disposals' against the term debt.
