Cork subsidiary of Spanish fishing group confident of survival

An Irish subsidiary of the giant Pescanova fishing group, which has filed for insolvency in Spain and whose chairman has been charged with falsifying information and insider trading, is "99 per cent certain" to continue in business, its general manager has said.

Shrimp processor and wholesaler Eiranova Fisheries Ltd, which is based in Castletownbere, Co Cork, started its new season recently and remains unaffected by developments concerning its parent in Spain, said Jorge Andrades.

He said he was confident the business would survive any developments in Spain.

Eiranova buys shrimp and other crustaceans from suppliers around the Irish coast and employs 40 people at its plant in Castletownbere. It is the largest shrimp producer in Ireland.

In Spain the former Pescanova chairman, Manuel Fernandez de Sousa, has been ordered to deposit with the courts almost €179 million to cover potential damages arising from the group's collapse. Other executives and board members have been subjected to similar orders, with the total involved coming to €1.6 billion.

Bankruptcies
Pescanova, a Spanish multinational that pioneered the practice of processing and freezing fish at sea on board large fishing vessels, has become one of the most high-profile cases in a year of record-high bankruptcies in Spain after auditors said managers had tried to conceal the extent of its debt.

Manuel Fernandez (62), a director of Eiranova Fisheries and shareholder in its parent company, was also a director of a number of other Pescanova subsidiaries around the world which are also registered in Ireland, according to the latest return for Eiranova Fisheries.

Why these companies, which include Spanish, French, African and Australian subsidiaries, are registered in Ireland is not clear.

Mr Andrades said he did not know the reason, and attempts to get a comment from Pescanova in Spain were unsuccessful.

Eiranova Fisheries was incorporated in 1974. It once owned a number of fishing vessels but this is no longer the case.

Latest accounts
The latest accounts for Eiranova are for the year to the end of 2012 and show it made a pretax profit of €74,928, down from €554,512 the previous year.

The company had retained earnings at the end of the period of €1.6 million.

The accounts show the company had an €850,000 working capital facility with the Bank of Ireland, which had a letter of guarantee from the company’s parent. They also show that the Irish company was involved in the selling of product to a number of other companies in the Pescanova group, and was invoiced for services provided by its parent.