Hopes to sell liquidated store as going concern

ONE of Cork’s best known camera stores, Denis MacSweeny Photoshop, was placed into liquidation yesterday.

However, hopes are high that the company will be sold as a going concern. If this is the case then the new operators are understood to be keen to trade as a camera shop.

Denis MacSweeny Photoshop Limited is understood to have had debts of more than €500,000.

The company’s rent bill on Cork’s Oliver Plunkett Street was reduced by 50% last year, but it has been unable to trade out of its difficulties.

A creditors meeting was held early yesterday morning and Ciaran Desmond of McGuire Desmond solicitors in Cork was appointed liquidator.

Mr Desmond confirmed that he is in talks about the takeover of the company and that a decision on its future will be reached shortly.

The MacSweeny name has been in the photography business selling cameras and processing film since 1916 and it had the first black and white processing lab in Ireland.

Denis MacSweeny Photoshop has been operating in Cork since 1990 selling cameras and developing photographs. The company has not been in the ownership of the MacSweeny family for a number of years.

The latest accounts for the company are for 2009 and in those the auditors pointed out an “emphasis of matter”, saying that the company incurred a net loss of €31,343 during the period ended September 20, 2009, and as at that date liabilities exceeded its total assets by €99,532.