Stokes brothers' Auldcarn Ltd in liquidation with €2.3m debts

AULDCARN LTD, a company owned by restaurateurs Christian and Simon Stokes, has gone into liquidation with debts of €2.3 million, including a tax bill of almost €1 million. A statement of affairs shows the company has no realisable assets from which the debts can be paid.

Jim Luby of McStay Luby Chartered Accountants was appointed yesterday by the Revenue Commissioners at a meeting of creditors as liquidator to Auldcarn, the company which formerly owned the Clarendon Inn.

The appointment of a liquidator comes a day after the Stokes brothers’ private members’ club, Residence, entered receivership and three days after Mayfair Properties – the company behind Bang Cafe restaurant – was liquidated.

According to the statement of affairs, Auldcarn, whose sole business was the Clarendon Inn pub, which ceased trading under the management of the Stokes brothers in early 2008, has debts of €2.337 million.

The Clarendon Inn is now managed by Niall Lawless, who has no connection to the Stokes brothers.

The Revenue Commissioners is the largest creditor of Auldcarn. It is owed just under €1 million, comprising €957,998 in corporation tax and €8,149 in PAYE and PRSI.

This is in addition to the €1.2 million owed to the Revenue by Missford Ltd, the holding company for Residence, which entered receivership on Wednesday. The majority of this tax bill relates to employee PRSI and PAYE deductions which were not passed on to the Revenue.

Auldcarn’s other main creditor is developer Bernard McNamara’s company Zarament, which bought the Clarendon Inn property from the Stokes brothers in 2005 and leased back the business to them until early 2008.

The statement of affairs shows that Zarament is owed €550,000.

Mr McNamara’s company has being pursuing the Stokes brothers for this money through the courts.

In addition, Auldcarn owes substantial debts to the brothers’ other two companies. It owes €677,756 to Mayfair Properties and €113,105 to Missford Ltd.

Although Christian and Simon Stokes’s father, Jeff Stokes, ceased being a director of Mayfair Properties and Missford Ltd in September last year, he remains as a director of Auldcarn, according to files at the Companies Registration Office.

Jeff Stokes is co-owner of restaurants Unicorn and Il Segreto, which are located beside Bang Cafe on Merrion Row in Dublin 2.

Simon and Christian Stokes, whose mother is designer and business owner Pia Bang, are two of Dublin’s best-known restaurateurs.

In the High Court on Wednesday, Mr Justice Peter Kelly was highly critical of the brothers’ management of Residence, in particular its failure to pass on employee tax contributions to the Revenue.

Mr Justice Kelly said he would be referring the judgment and papers relating to the case to the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE).

Yesterday, Mr Luby confirmed that, as the appointed liquidator, he would begin an investigation into Auldcarn and would be sending a report to the ODCE.