Kilkenny businessman Xavier McAuliffe has said that although a liquidator has been appointed to close the retail aspect of his Spectra photo-processing business with the loss of at least three jobs, the remaining business is performing well.
Mr McAuliffe who owns the Lyrath Estate Hotel and the Rivercourt Hotel both in Kilkennyhas said that Spectra Photo retail division has been losing money for some time.
Spectra Photo (Retail ) is expected to be wound up at a creditors’ meeting later this month.
At the height of the business Spectra had 35 stores nationwide, but Mr McAuliffe said that this was now down to just three.
In a report in the Sunday Business Post at the weekend Mr McAuliffe said that the company had been “losing money for years”, with losses in the region of €300,000 to €500,000 a year.
“The rent on our Grafton Street premises [in Dublin] alone was €300,000,” said McAuliffe, who established the business in Kerry in 1970.
He said that Spectra’s shops had been hit by the advent of digital photography, but its debts were “not significant”.
There are also reports that staff in Lyrath have been on a three day week in recent times due to a slow down in business.
Mr McAuliffe also has hotels and business interests abroad in Panama where he has other hotels in operation.
His latest venture includes the opening of a new hotel in Kilkenny called McCourt’s, located to the front of the Rivercourt Hotel and a Thai restaurant called Yindees Downtown which also has a restaurant located at the Lyrath Estate Hotel.
