Company is about to receive £120m capital injection from Government

THE revelations about executive remuneration at Bord na Mona come at a crucial time in the company's 50 year history.

It is due to receive the first tranche of a £120 million capital injection by the Government very soon. The refinancing is intended to wipe out almost two thirds of the company's £166 million debt. This was built up over the last 20 years.

For the first time in over a decade the company will be on a firm financial footing and in a position to seek new equity partners and develop into other business areas.

The £120 million injection requires the approval of the European Commission and will involve the creation of a new corporate structure for Bord na Mona.

The Government's decision to refinance the company was taken last year after the company had substantially restructured itself under Dr Eddie O'Connor and the previous chairman, Mr Brendan Halligan. The loss making peat producer of the early 1980s had become consistently profitable.

Under Dr O'Connor the company has shed almost 2,000 jobs since 1988, reducing its full time workforce to 2,200.

The turnaround came in 1990, when the code modest profits following six years annual losses, including £81 million the previous year.

That £81 million incorporated £26 million for redundancies which, along with other cost cutting measures, were responsible for the recovery. Over valued assets were also written down.

Other measures included the relocation of the headquarters from Baggot Street, Dublin, to Newbridge, Co Kildare.

The last set of accounts, to the end of March 1995, show a profit of £5 million on a turnover of £130 million, after debt servicing costs of almost £15 million.

Peat production for the ESB and other third parties is the company's major activity, accounting for more than £55 million of turnover.

The next largest division is horticulture, which had a turnover of £42.5 million in the year to March 1995. The fuels division had sales of almost £30 million.

The environmental division, which is the smallest, develops peat based technology for the treatment of waste water.

The company's increasingly commercial focus under Dr O'Connor included participating in one of the losing consortiums which bid for the second GSM mobile phone licence.

Bord na Mona has also agreed to buy the largest coal distributor in the State, Consolidated Holdings (CHL), for £4.5 million.