A GROUP of senior managers at SR Technics’s aircraft maintenance facility in Dublin is believed to have teamed up with Irish private equity group Claret Capital to consider making a bid for the business.
This is believed to be one of up to 16 proposals under consideration for the large hangar facility at Dublin airport.
Both IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland are assessing expressions of interest from interested parties and have hired an external consultant to manage that process and try to rescue the business.
It is understood that Claret last week began advising the management team on the bid. An equity involvement by the Dublin-based investment group has not been ruled out.
SRT’s Dublin plant is led by country manager Noel Murray.
Claret was founded by financier and former aircraft leasing executive Domhnal Slattery to invest in private equity deals.
The investment group, which is now 25 per cent owned by Senator Feargal Quinn and his family, is behind JetBird, an executive jet airline that is due to launch this autumn from a base in Cologne, Germany.
SRT’s management team is believed to be working on a proposal that would save about half of the 1,100 jobs that are due to be axed by the Swiss company SRT when its shuts the aircraft maintenance facility.
The so-called management buy- in plan is expected to propose that SRT invests some capital in the project – a sum that would be the equivalent of what it would have paid out in redundancy to the laid off workers.
SRT has said it will pay €48 million in redundancy to its Dublin-based workers.
Management is also expected to seek support from the Government, either through Enterprise Ireland or the IDA.
A rescue of SRT’s maintenance facility here has been complicated by the sale of the lease on the building to the Dublin Airport Authority for a sum of just more than €20 million.
It is understood that the DAA is willing to consider any viable proposal for the large hangar building but as yet no “commercial” plan has been put to the airport manager.
Ryanair recently said it would consider setting up its own aircraft maintenance facility at the SRT site at Dublin Airport, creating 500 jobs.
Ryanair has been heavily critical of the DAA in recent years in relation to the cost of expansion at the airport and the level of passenger charges.
Swiss group SRT said it was serious about examining all expressions from parties interested in taking over all or part of the company’s operation at Dublin airport, regardless of whether this could result in greater competition for its own operations abroad.
“The company will facilitate the continued operation of the business in Ireland if a financially viable offer is made, and a decision in this respect will be taken irrespective of any potential impact on SR Technics’ other locations, including those in Zurich,” the company said.
Up to 30 expressions of interests are believed to have been received initially.
Last week it emerged that the staff pension fund has a deficit of more than €26 million.
About 500 workers from SRT staged a march in Dublin city centre last week to highlight a number of issues surrounding the closure of the firm.
