Ciaran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson of KPMG, the provisional liquidators, appointed by the High Court last Friday to the operating company at Clerys, may be opposed by some creditors when the court appoints permanent liquidators in a couple of weeks time, due to a perceived conflict of interest.

This is because KPMG’s office in London acts as auditor to one of the parties, Cheyne Capital Management, who purchased both the operating and property companies which ran Clerys for their former owners, Gordon Brothers of Boston.

An interesting link between Anglo Irish Bank and the new owners of Clerys has also emerged. Cheyne Capital Management and D2, a property company run by Irish property developer, Deirdre Foley, are the parties in Natrium, the joint venture which acquired the Clerys business last week.

Natrium subsequently transferred the operating company, OCS Operations Ltd, for €1 to a small insolvency-services firm based in Wimbledon run by Jim Brydie, a former senior executive in the UK with Anglo Irish Bank and who may have had business dealings with Deirdre Foley in this capacity in the past.

It was Brydie’s, Logan Capital, that petitioned the court to have KPMG appointed as provisional liquidators of the Clerys operating company on Friday.

Concessions

Some of the 50 businesses which had concessions in Clerys will be allowed into the building to retrieve their stock today.

Concession holders estimate that they have around €3m euro worth of goods in the store, which announced last Friday that it was to close immediately.

According to the Irish Independent, the situation regarding about €2m in cash due to be paid to the concession holders this week looks bleak.

Yesterday unions were told that there is no money left to cover the cost of redundancies or back pay - and that the State Insolvency Fund is the only avenue open to workers.