McNamara’s Radoo Lands loses €15.5m following writedowns
Accounts filed by the Ennis-based Radoo Lands Ltd show that the company recorded the €after tax loss to the end of December 2009 following a €15.5m writedown in its current and financial assets during the year.
Documents lodged with the Companies Office show that Mr McNamara has a one third share in the company he co-owns with two well-known Clare developers, Sean Lyne and Noel Connellan.
All three are directors of the firm, which has its registered office at the Ballymaley Business Park on Ennis’s Galway Rd.
Last November, Mr McNamara’s main construction firm, Michael McNamara & Co., was placed into receivership, while in January of last year in an RTÉ interview, the Lisdoonvarna native admitted he was broke.
Prior to the property crash, Mr Lyne — who also has a share in The Clare People newspaper — and Mr Connellan spent millions in acquiring large tracts of zoned land around Ennis for development purposes. However, much of it today is not built upon and remains idle.
The abridged accounts show that Radoo Lands Ltd wrote down the value of its stocks by €7.54m in 2009, while the value of its financial assets was written down by €8.1m from €8.6m to €499,184.
The writedown arose from the writedown in the shares of Dwellblin Construction Ltd, which is 100% owned by Radoo Lands Ltd.
Radoo Lands Ltd had net liabilities of €16.4m at the end of 2009 and the company’s auditors, Cuddihy & Company, state that the loss and the liabilities “indicate the existence of a material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern”.
Without qualifying their opinion on the accounts, the Ennis-based auditors state: “The directors are in regular negotiations with the company’s bankers regarding the repayment of outstanding loan balances.
“The company has received a letter of support from its parent stating that it will continue to provide the company with adequate funds and resources necessary to meet all liabilities and commitments of the company as they fall due for a minimum of 12 months from the date of the signing of the financial statements. The directors have prepared the financial statements of the company on the basis that the company is a going concern.”
Radoo Lands Ltd’s parent company is the Ennis-based CLS Crystal Partners Holding Company Ltd and accounts for that company show it had net assets of €336,103 at the end of 2008 after recording a loss of €87,146 during that year.
Radoo Lands Ltd owed €12.6m in bank loans and overdrafts at the end of 2009 to be repaid in one year or less, while it also owed €3.5m to CLS Crystal Partners Ltd.
The accounts show that Mr McNamara and the other directors have each personal guarantees for €1m-plus accrued interest to the Bank of Scotland in relation to the bank loans.
The bank is not one of the participating banks in the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) process.
The accounts show that the bank loans are also secured by a floating charge over all of the assets of the company and a specific charge over the lands and premises of 13 apartments and commercial units on a quarter acre site at Ennis, Co Clare.
