Examinerships save 1,000 jobs in just six months but not all areas benefit

The examinership process saved more than 1,000 jobs in the first six months of this year.

The Hughes Blake SME Examinership Index found that 484 jobs in SMEs were saved, while 640 were saved in a single examinership of B&Q.

For small companies the process had a success rate of 75% with most troubled firms emerging in a better financial state.

Despite the high success rates, geography remains a serious obstacle to small businesses using the mechanism. Neil Hughes, managing partner, said that only Dublin companies were benefiting at the moment.

“When reviewing all the companies that entered the process this year, the majority of them are from the Dublin and Leinster areas. I believe that once the process moves to the circuit court we will see more of a geographic spread. Currently it remains challenging for business owners and managers to try to run the day to day operations of their business, while also participating in applications to the High Court. We need to remove this obstacle from SME firms around Ireland as soon as possible in order to encourage other viable businesses to use examinership as a route to survival.”

However, circuit courts will not hear petitions for examinership until 2014. This delay may force some firms into liquidation instead.

“The increasing popularity of [examinerships] is no doubt largely due to continuing difficulties in the state of the Irish economy. However, it is also attributable to the fact that the process has been shown to be very successful at saving businesses. Some well-known companies will continue to trade as a result of the process including Pamela Scott, Monsoon and The Sunday Business Post,” said Mr Hughes.