Castlebar Oil Company Ltd and Sweeney Oil, which trades under the name Fate Park Ltd, is to be taken over following a High Court ruling which will see the survival of 105 jobs at the west’s largest oil distribution company.
Fate Park Ltd will be taken over by Tedcastle Holdings (Tedcastles ) in return for a €12 million investment after Fate Park went into examinership last April.
The company had run into financial difficulties. The company employs 50 drivers, owns 16 depots, 65 trucks, two petrol stations, and accounts for 15 per cent of the market share in Connacht.
Examiner Billy O’Riordan has ordered that AIB, which is owed €20m, will receive €6.6m, while Nire Oil will receive €250,000 of a €5 million debt.
Esso and Topaz will share €950,000 between them while investors will share €300,000 among them. The Revenue Commissioners and some other creditors will divide €200,000 among them.
The company is owned by well-known businessman John Sweeney who will resign along with other directors, the court heard. The court also heard that creditors would do better from the continuation of the business rather than if it were wound up.
However Topaz, through its senior counsel, told the court it was objecting to the scheme because of the writing off of €27 million in debt, among other reasons, owed by Fate Park by some of its subsidiary companies. He claimed the proceeds of the sale had been used by subsidiary companies of Fate Park to fund investment properties. Counsel for Topaz claimed that if the companies were liquidated then the property investments may yield some return which would benefit Topaz.
Mr Justice Hedigan rejected these proposals.
Fate Park was established by John Sweeney in 1987 in Galway and is now a major fuel distributor in the west of Ireland with volumes of 200 million litres, a network of 15 locations, and more than 100 employees.
Tedcastles is a 100 per cent Irish family-owned fuel importation and distribution business which has been trading for more than 50 years. The group currently has 300 employees with annual revenues of €1 billion. The Tedcastles group has an extensive operational infrastructure that comprises a network of 125 dealer stations, 21 nationwide company-owned depots, 30 authorised distributors, and 85 fuel card locations. The group operates from its own import terminal, a modern 55,000 tonne facility, in Dublin Port. The group also imports products through Belfast, Cork, Derry, Limerick, and Galway. The company supplies customers that range from large blue-chip commercial companies to domestic homes.
