Barryroe examiner close to finalising survival plan with Goodman investment

The High Court-appointed examiner of Barryroe Offshore Energy (BOE) is close to finalising a survival plan for the company that would see its largest investor, Larry Goodman, making a multimillion-euro investment and taking control.

It is understood that the plan, or so-called scheme of arrangement, will be circulated to creditors of the company as early as next week.

Kieran Wallace of corporate advisory firm Interpath Ireland was appointed as examiner of BOE in late July following an application by Mr Goodman’s Vevan Unlimited vehicle, which owns 20 per cent of the company.

Vevan’s move came just days before shareholders were due to vote on putting the company into liquidation after Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan refused in May to grant a permit for its key Barryroe oil project off the Cork coast.

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The examiner is said to have received investment approaches from two other parties, but is set to proceed with the investment pitch from Vevan.

The beef tycoon’s bid is centred on the possibility that the oil and gas explorer could move its focus to green energy projects, according to an independent expert’s report that was filed in tandem with the examinership petition.

BOE, which is insolvent, had been seeking in the wake of the Minister’s May decision to secure fresh funds from big shareholders to keep the company running in order to pursue a legal case – by way of a judicial review – against the Government. However, this came to nothing and the company was heading towards liquidation before Mr Goodman made his move.

The independent expert’s report, which said the company has a reasonable prospect of surviving as a going concern, did not explore the possibility of potential legal action, with its attendant risks.

However, the report, written by Damien Murran, head of Teneo Ireland’s corporate restructuring practice, said that an examiner could explore “what recourse [if any] the company may have regarding existing or expired exploration licences”.

“Vevan sees a future for the company by reducing its focus on the fossil fuel industry and possibly pivoting the business towards green energy projects,” it said.

BOE traces its roots back to 1981, when businessman Sir Anthony O’Reilly and a group of investors set up Atlantic Resources to pursue opportunities at a time of heightened speculation about oil and gas resources off Irish shores.

The examinership process that Mr Goodman is looking to use for BOE was established under emergency laws originally enacted in the summer of 1990 to save the businessman’s beef processing empire from collapse.

On September 1st, the High Court extended BOE’s period of protection from its creditors by an additional 35 days in order to give the examiner time for further discussions with potential investors in the company.

BOE has burned through more than €270 million of cash raised from share placings over the past 12 years. Barryroe was the last remaining exploration hope. The prospect, 50km off the Cork coast, was found more than a decade ago to have more than 300 million barrels of oil as well as gas resources. BOE saw three development partnership deals fall through over the period.

Mr Goodman’s Vevan vehicle moved last November to provide a €40 million funding backstop for the Barryroe project, after Mr Ryan’s department expressed concerns about BOE’s ability to fund the next stage of work on the field while officials considered an application for a crucial permit, known as lease undertaking.

The Minister, however, relied on a criterion in non-mandatory guidelines issued by his department in 2019 – that licence applicants should have net tangible assets of 3½ times the cost of planned works – in making his decision in May refuse the permit.