A downturn in film production has forced an Irish company involved in blockbusters such as Michael Collins and Braveheart to wind up operations this week with a €200,000 deficit.
The directors of Edit Line, a film editing specialist which also acted as landlord to Mr Jim Sheridan's Hell's Kitchen production company, appointed accountant Mr Tim Regan as liquidator at a meeting in Dublin this week.
According to the directors' estimated statement of affairs, the company owes €217,739.64, including €10,319 to the Revenue Commissioners, a preferential creditor, for PAYE and PRSI payments.
The Revenue is also named among unsecured creditors in relation to debts of €66,426, the second-largest amount outstanding.
Director and founder Mr Jim Colgan is its biggest creditor. He is owed €73,914 in relation to money he borrowed and lodged to the company last year.
The directors estimate the company has realisable assets of €5,000 and €5,000 in cash.
Ulster Bank is owed €40,787. Others on the list of creditors include the ESB, Eircom, O2 and Ardmore Studios subsidiary Ardmore Sound, of which Mr Colgan was also a founding director.
Mr Colgan, who ran the company with his wife, Janet, told a creditors' meeting on Tuesday that they had established the company in 1992 after the couple had identified opportunities in computerised editing of films.
At the same time, the Republic's tax breaks were attracting large productions. On the basis that Edit Line was using the same system as US editors, it was successful at getting work on big productions. Films that passed through its hands included Michael Collins, Angela's Ashes, Braveheart and The Butcher Boy.
In 2000, it invested heavily in new premises on Dublin's Mespil Road. It lost €48,000 the following year and work dried up in 2002 and 2003 because of a question mark over the tax break's future.
Hell's Kitchen sublet space from Edit Line in 2001. This year it took over the main lease and cleared its former landlord's €6,000 a-year rates bill.
