Bovale’s British losses reach €21.6m

LOSSES sustained last year at the British construction firm controlled by builders, Tom and Michael Bailey, totalled £18.9m (€21.6m), new figures show.

The new filings, just returned to the British-based Companies House, reveal that Bovale Ltd is now reliant upon receiving approval of its strategic plan for its future operations from the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA).

The company’s directors said that they are confident that such approval will be forthcoming and “will enable the company to complete property infrastructure development to a stage where positive cash flows can then be generated”.

The directors, listed as Michael and Tom Bailey and Charles Collier, add, however, that “if the approval is not forthcoming, the company would have to seek alternative financing to meet its financial obligations”.

Bovale Ltd’s website states that currently, the company is progressing over 25 development projects that have a combined development value of approximately £100m.

In 2006, the Bailey brothers made a record €22.17m tax settlement with the Revenue Commissioners in a case that arose from the Flood/Mahon planning tribunal.

The abridged accounts, signed off on September 29, show that the Shrewsbury-based company has amounts totalling £79.2m falling due to creditors within one year, including £78.5m for which security has been given.

The brothers’ Irish-based property company, Bovale Developments, is one of the largest landowners in the state, but it is an unlimited company, so information on its financial position is not available.

However, the abridged accounts for the British-based Bovale Ltd provide an insight into the scale of losses sustained by the company, with the losses increasing almost three fold to £18.9m to the end of September last.

The loss sustained last year increased the company’s accumulated losses to £23.8m. A significant contributory factor was the filings confirming that the company impaired a fixed asset investment by £8m reducing its value to £200,000.

The accounts also show that the company wrote down the value of an investment property by £985,000 during the year to £6.87m.

In total, the company’s shareholders’ deficit stood at £29.8m at the end of the year compared to a deficit of £9.9m the previous year.

The figures show that the company’s cash at bank and in hand reduced from £6m to £376,591 during the year.