Calling in receiver is a sign of the times

The iconic department store Clerys was temporarily put into receivership this week. The waste disposal firm Greenstar was put into receivership a month ago, while Atlantic Homecare has just emerged from a successful examinership process.

What all these firms have in common is that they are trading companies. Over the first couple of years of the downturn, the vast proportion of companies that were put into receivership came from the property sector.

“I think this is the start of a trend,” says debt restructuring specialist Declan Dolan with Dublin-based DCA Accountants. “At the start of the crisis, banks took the view that property companies had long-term problems so it was best to appoint receivers to deal with them. Now banks are taking a more realistic worldview and trading companies with high levels of debt are coming under scrutiny.”