Clifden’s King group posts losses of €4.5m

The holding company for the Clifden, Co Galway-based EJ King group, owned by Terry Sweeney and family, had accumulated losses of €4.5 million at the end of February 2013, according to accounts just filed. This is a €1.5 million deterioration on the position a year earlier.

EJ King Bar Ltd is the holding company for a group that includes the Schoolhouse Hotel in Dublin and the Westwood House Hotel, Newcastle, Galway. The group does not publish consolidated accounts.

The accounts for the holding company show the amounts it was owed by connected companies plummeted to €192,509 from €2.1 million a year earlier.

A bank loan of €4.9 million was down from €5.3 million at the end of the previous year.

The security behind the company’s bank borrowings included guarantees of Westwood House Hotel Ltd, EJ King Bar, Clifden, Busker Brownes bar and Kirby’s restaurant on Cross Street, Galway, the School House Hotel in Dublin, and other security including an instruction to Anglo Irish Bank to transfer Mr Sweeney’s portion of the surplus proceeds from the sale of Champion Sports to an identified deposit account of Mr Sweeney’s.

EJ King Bar Ltd paid rent of €79,008 to Mr Sweeney during the year.

Group subsidiary Lusaka Properties saw the value of its tangible assets fall to €1.9 million from €8.4 million and its debts to a subsidiary fall to €47,911 from €8.5 million.

Accumulated profits at the Schoolhouse Hotel Ltd rose to €571,070, from €285,622 at the end of the previous year. Debts owed by group undertakings rose to €442,146 from €221,827. The company paid rent of €198,774 to Mr Sweeney.

The Westwood House Hotel Ltd saw shareholders’ funds move to a deficit of €10.5 million at year’s end, having been €1 million in surplus a year earlier. Investments of €5 million were reduced to zero, while €8.5 million owed by group undertakings was reduced to €53,473. Directors were owed €4.1 million and Anglo Irish Bank was owed €6.2 million, at year’s end. A request for a comment from Mr Sweeney met with no response.