Bell Lines seeks buyer
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by Karen Miles • Hauliers owed £17m by the crisis-struck Bell Lines will learn this week how much of their money they will get back.
If a new backer is found for the Irish shipping line, haulage creditors should get around 35p in the punt. If no backer is found the payout is expected to very low. In another heated week of negotiations Bell Lines' examiner, David Hughes of accountants Ernst & Young, was in discussion with two potential backers after the collapse of talks with an initial consortium of investors.
Failure to secure a backer would almost certainly finish off the company, which has a turnover of more than IRC100m.
Hughes had until yesterday (25 June) to secure a survival plan and to present it to the Irish High Court as a "scheme of arrangement". The court than has to decide whether to accept the proposal.
Some 500 UK and Irish container hauliers are among the creditors: many of them are still working for Bell Lines on a weekto-week basis.
Bell Lines charters ships to carry its containers between Ireland, the UK and the Continent; it contracts out its road transport.