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The closure of the Aperee Living Belgooly nursing home in Co Cork left a financial shortfall of €9m, according to a statement of affairs for the business, which was part of the much wider chain that lurched into financial crisis two years ago.
A statement of affairs for Aperee Living Belgooly, prepared last year but only recently submitted to the Companies Registration Office, shows its main asset was the purpose-built nursing home itself, valued at €1.8m.
The home in Belgooly is now closed but was part of the big chains established by investment manager David O’Shea of the BlackBee Group.
At one point, Mr O’Shea had ambitions to build a €250m portfolio of homes, through the Aperee group, but both the chain itself and BlackBee ran into crisis.
The filing for Aperee Living Belgooly shows the company had gross liabilities of €11.6m. The accounts show the bulk of that was owed to a mix of unsecured creditors, including related companies.
The total owed to preferred creditors was made up of rates owed to Cork County Council, redundancy funding owed to the Department of Social Protection and money owed to Revenue; and added up to €569,000.
A statement of affairs for a company that is in liquidation sets out details of any assets that can be realised and all money owned at the point when it ceased trading.
John Healy, of Healy Kirby Chartered Accounts, was appointed as a liquidator to the company last year. Separately a receiver, Gerard Murphy, was appointed over the secured assets of the firm.
The Belgooly property is one of five Aperee nursing homes that were brought to the market last October that agent Cohalan Downing has agreed to sell to three different purchasers for a combined price above the €9m which was expected to be realised.
Last month, Gerard Murphy launched a second sale process to dispose of four of the other nursing homes connected to the chain, targeting proceeds of around €8m.
The combined proceeds of the sales will go some way towards recouping cash for the many investors who invested in the chain through funds managed by entities linked to Mr O’Shea. His Cork-based BlackBee was one of the most active loan note promoters in Munster and by 2014 had raised more than €150m for various projects from a mix of thousands of relatively small investors.
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