\n
Business founded by former Dragons\u2019 Den star and her entrepreneur husband says investment sought to save business as it continues to trade\n<\/p>\n
The company, which employs 78 people, continues to trade during the examinership process. East Coast Bakehouse said it intends to protect jobs and customer relationships. Examinership protects a business from its creditors for a limited period while it tries to put in place a rescue plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been a difficult decision, but we believe examinership offers the most constructive route to securing the future of the business,\u201d said Mr Carey.<\/p>\n
The decision to seek examinership comes just seven months after Mr Carey resigned as Enterprise Ireland chairman, a decision made after East Coast Bakehouse had failed to file its accounts on time. It was 18 months late in doing so at the time he resigned, putting it in breach of the law. Mr Carey also resigned as chairman of the Housing Agency at the time.<\/p>\n
Enterprise Ireland is a financial backer of East Coast Bakehouse, having injected about \u20ac2.4m into the business.<\/p>\n
The company, founded in 2015, has also raised millions of euro from well-heeled investors. They include Laurence Shields, the founder of law firm LK Shields; Patrick Joy, the owner of Suretank; Mary Ann O\u2019Brien, the founder of Lily O\u2019Brien Chocolates; and former Kellogg\u2019s executive Stephen Twaddle. Mr Carey has also invested heavily in the business.<\/p>\n
However, the company has accumulated losses of almost \u20ac32m.<\/p>\n
The High Court has now approved an application by East Coast Bakehouse for an interim examiner to be appointed to the business.<\/p>\n
The company has nominated Kieran Wallace of Interpath to act as examiner.<\/p>\n
The application is intended to provide the company with a period of court protection while it restructures its balance sheet in order to secure new equity investment, with the aim of supporting the long-term future of the business and protecting employment.<\/p>\n
An independent expert report prepared by Luke Charlton, restructuring partner at EY, and presented to the court, has concluded that the company has a reasonable prospect of continuing as a going concern, subject to a successful restructuring.<\/p>\n
At the time he resigned as chairman of Enterprise Ireland, Mr Carey said that the company would soon close a \u20ac5m equity fundraising and was also lining up \u20ac5m in debt funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the year ending 28 February 2026, \u20ac4.5m of additional equity funding has been committed, of which \u20ac4.3m has been received at the time of approval of these financial statement,\u201d note the most recent accounts for East Coast Bakehouse, which were signed off in July last year.<\/p>\n
They add: \u201cOn 10 February 2025, the company agreed a four-year repayment plan with the Revenue Commissioners commencing on 3 March 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n
East Coast Bakehouse said it has faced financial cash pressure arising from high ingredient cost inflation, general increases in cost of doing business and phased repayment arrangements of tax liabilities.<\/p>\n
Mr Carey said the examinership process will allow the company \u201cto address legacy financial pressures, strengthen the balance sheet and create a solid platform to conclude negotiations on further equity investment\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cDuring this period, the business continues to trade and products remain available to customers as normal. While there is work to be done, we are confident that this process can conclude successfully and result in a strengthened business with positive long-term prospects.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Business founded by former Dragons\u2019 Den star and her entrepreneur husband says investment sought to save business as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[18,143009,117,19,17,24512,1900,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-284950","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-enterprise-ireland-government-agency","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-john-mulligan","14":"tag-revenue-commissioners","15":"tag-tv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115896637413020781","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}