Fennell appointed to troubled pub firm

AIB HAS appointed Ken Fennell of Kavanagh Fennell to Dublin pub and property business Graingers. The bank appointed Mr Fennell to Hugh and Mark Grainger Ltd and a series of associated companies on foot of a mortgage over the group’s properties dating back to 2003.

Accounts for 2009, the last available for the business, show that the bank was due €7 million at the end of that year.

The business includes Grainger’s pub in Baldoyle and the Sheaf O’Wheat in Coolock, both on Dublin’s northside, as well as a number of other properties.

The accounts show that the company’s auditors, McHugh Kinsella and Associates, drew attention to the fact that it needed the support of its shareholders and bankers to continue as a going concern.

At that stage, both the shareholders, the Grainger family, and the banks signalled that they were willing to continue to support the business, which had been lossmaking for a number of years.

The rate at which companies are becoming insolvent shows no signs of slowing.

More than 1,500 businesses went under last year.

Figures from the Insolvency Journal, published by Kavanagh Fennell, show that 1,208 companies had gone into some form of insolvency process by the end of September.

The worst month so far in 2011 was April, which saw 162 receiverships and liquidations.