TF Royal placed in receivership.

goodie2shoes

No job losses and ‘business as usual’ in Castlebar hotels after receivership


TF creditors to be contacted this week

Edwin McGreal
edwinmcgreal@mayonews.ie

Management at the TF Royal Hotel and Theatre and Harlequin Hotel in Castlebar have moved to allay fears about the future of the business after the two hotels were placed in receivership on Friday last.
There will be no job losses at either hotel, management stress, and both will run ‘business as usual’ after being placed in receivership.
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) moved on Friday last to appoint KPMG as receivers to the two hotels, owned and operated by the Jennings family. RBS also apppointed BDL, one of the UK’s largest hotel groups, as the management company for the TF and Harlequin.
KPMG are expected to contact creditors from the two hotels this week to discuss what level of payments will be made.
Rachel Cresham, Sales and Marketing Manager at the TF Royal Theatre, said that they had received a lot of inquiries about ticket sales at the Royal Theatre.
“All ticket sales are secure - a lot of people were concerned about that. We’re running business as usual in the hotel and theatre,” she said.
She conceded that the TF had endured difficulties with ticket sales in recent times which didn’t help their financial situation.
“Ticket sales around the country are suffering at the moment from the recession. The leisure pound is getting harder and harder to get,” she said.
The TF has been run by the Jennings family for two generations. First established in the 1950s by Paddy and Mary B Jennings, both now deceased, the hotel was run up until last Friday by their son Pat, and his wife, Mary.
The old ballroom at the TF was part of a major redevelopment project in recent years with the TF being one of the largest theatres outside of Dublin. The TF Royal Hotel and Theatre currently employ in the region of 40 people in full-time, part-time and casual positions.
The family business also expanded in 2006 when the Jennings’ opened Day’s Hotel close to the TF, now the Harlequin Hotel. Their manager Lynda Foley was keen to stress that nothing would change at the Harlequin.
“The message is that we’re open for business as normal, there’s no change in any staff or management. BDL have assured us that the quality of our product won’t change either - we’ll remain a four-star hotel,” she said.
The Harlequin, a 90 bedroom hotel, has a workforce in the region of 50 full-time and part-time staff.
Nearby Breaffy House Hotel was also placed in receivership in recent years.

nuac

WISH them all the best. The Jennings were always a hard-working family. I remember when they first opened their shop there iin c 1949

Kristopherus

nuac wrote: »

WISH them all the best. The Jennings were always a hard-working family. I remember when they first opened their shop there iin c 1949

And do you remember the last receiver/liquidation in 1989, where a lot of local suppliers got nothing. And the present supremo opened up a few months later under a new guise.Going bust twice in 20-odd years is careless at best

nuac

Noted Christo

I stil say the Jennings famio;ly have worked very hard over the last 60 plus years.

They have br ought a lot of business to Castlebar.

The town and county could do with more with the same energy and enterprise

Kristopherus

Well, if half the stories going round are true, this will all end in tears, sadly.

irishgeo

Kristopherus wrote: »

Well, if half the stories going round are true, this will all end in tears, sadly.

RBS owing a theatre?

Kristopherus

irishgeo wrote: »

RBS owing a theatre?

A lot more than that, I'm afraid.

irishgeo

Kristopherus wrote: »

A lot more than that, I'm afraid.

care to share by pm?

goodie2shoes

yes Kristos what exactly are you trying to say? please share.

i've heard a rumour RBS is owed 40 big ones, and personal guarantees may well called upon.

the Celtic Tiger has left much destruction in it's wake i'm afraid.:(

Kristopherus

Yea, I heard about the 40 big ones. If thats correct, its very hard to fathom. Revenues were huge in the period 06 to 10, so where did it go? If you take the cafeteria, they have served an average of 5000 meals a week at say €10 a go.The theatre was paying for itself. I dont know how the nightclub was doing, but it was hardly losing money. If you consider all the streams of money that were going into the coffers, it baffles me how a deficit of €40m was built up. As regards the other stuff, I'm sorry I cannot share any info, even by pm. But all will be revealed in due course, I'm sure.

Its a sad situation and hopefully there will be only minimal loss of employment.

irishgeo

Kristopherus wrote: »

Yea, I heard about the 40 big ones. If thats correct, its very hard to fathom. Revenues were huge in the period 06 to 10, so where did it go? If you take the cafeteria, they have served an average of 5000 meals a week at say €10 a go.The theatre was paying for itself. I dont know how the nightclub was doing, but it was hardly losing money. If you consider all the streams of money that were going into the coffers, it baffles me how a deficit of €40m was built up. As regards the other stuff, I'm sorry I cannot share any info, even by pm. But all will be revealed in due course, I'm sure.

Its a sad situation and hopefully there will be only minimal loss of employment.

He owes 40 million!

goodie2shoes

irishgeo wrote: »

He owes 40 million!

hahahaha!

the stupidity of folk during the Celtic Tiger just gets better 'n better!

irishgeo

goodie2shoes wrote: »

hahahaha!

the stupidity of folk during the Celtic Tiger just gets better 'n better!

Yes, he has to have his finger in some other development that went bad.

nuac

goodie2shoes wrote: »

hahahaha!

the stupidity of folk during the Celtic Tiger just gets better 'n better!

OK he has obviously made some mistakes but at least he did try to build up a business locally and did give local employment.

goodie2shoes

nuac wrote: »

OK he has obviously made some mistakes but at least he did try to build up a business locally and did give local employment.

it could be argued that he has destroyed what was a perfectly good, profitable business through greed and hubris.

Zippe

goodie2shoes wrote: »

it could be argued that he has destroyed what was a perfectly good, profitable business through greed and hubris.

Well I think there is always big money talk about things like this,I know lads that worked there and they said he was very hard working and he put in a lot of long days there,some time you have to take a chance and that he may have done but he built a fine place that served great food at a fair price,the tf brings a lot of people to Castlebar to gigs and the knock on of income to b&b's and other business around the town was big,I don't like to here people jumping on the band wagon and run down guy like this,he tried hard but it did not work out for him,he gave a lot of people work around the county when he had the chance and this should be what people are talking about,how about talking about how many homes were paid for and food put on the tables of homes of the staff that worked there,if he never took the chance to build up the tf to what he did this would not have happend ,no one ever talks about the good stuff these guys do,as for the 40m , papers are very fast coming up with these big amounts of money just to sell the story,if it was only 1mil no one would even look at it,I would not even listen to money talk about these sort of things,it's very easy to find fault with other when things don't work out,I wish him and his family all the best,

Zip,

yop

Zippe wrote: »

Well I think there is always big money talk about things like this,I know lads that worked there and they said he was very hard working and he put in a lot of long days there,some time you have to take a chance and that he may have done but he built a fine place that served great food at a fair price,the tf brings a lot of people to Castlebar to gigs and the knock on of income to b&b's and other business around the town was big,I don't like to here people jumping on the band wagon and run down guy like this,he tried hard but it did not work out for him,he gave a lot of people work around the county when he had the chance and this should be what people are talking about,how about talking about how many homes were paid for and food put on the tables of homes of the staff that worked there,if he never took the chance to build up the tf to what he did this would not have happend ,no one ever talks about the good stuff these guys do,as for the 40m , papers are very fast coming up with these big amounts of money just to sell the story,if it was only 1mil no one would even look at it,I would not even listen to money talk about these sort of things,it's very easy to find fault with other when things don't work out,I wish him and his family all the best,

Zip,

Its Ireland, people glory in others misfortune. People need to cop on in some cases, if a person runs up a debt then they are presumed reckless and greedy etc.
Must be the case for all people who took out big mortgages to buy their houses only for the house be 1/2 the price of the mortgage.

Bitterness is alive and well.

cutewhoor

Spent many the late night in the TF in the late 80's and 90's. Was a great place. however with regards to the shows in the Royal I have seen on the Twitter account of Mick Scott, Waterboys lead man that they never got paid for their show early last year. That is just one band ! That gives the town, venue and chances of future acts visiting a bad chance.

Sad to hear the news though.

goodie2shoes

cutewhoor wrote: »

Spent many the late night in the TF in the late 80's and 90's. Was a great place. however with regards to the shows in the Royal I have seen on the Twitter account of Mick Scott, Waterboys lead man that they never got paid for their show early last year. That is just one band ! That gives the town, venue and chances of future acts visiting a bad chance.

Sad to hear the news though.

yes that sort of carry on will give the town a great reputation. word spreads quickly in the entertainment industry.
like i said before, they had a perfectly good, profitable business built up over decades, but through greed and hubris it has been brought to its' knees.

this type of recklessness has been replicated all over the country many many times with terrible consequences.

yop wrote: »

Its Ireland, people glory in others misfortune. People need to cop on in some cases, if a person runs up a debt then they are presumed reckless and greedy etc.
Must be the case for all people who took out big mortgages to buy their houses only for the house be 1/2 the price of the mortgage.

Bitterness is alive and well.

BTW this case has nothing to do with families over-extending themselves in order to get a foot on the property ladder, as wrongly implied by the above post. to attempt to confuse the 2 is both disingenuous & misleading.