Auditors boom in the bust

Not all sectors of the economy are in recession. Some are absolutely roaring along. The offices of Grant Thornton on City Quay in Dublin were packed last Monday as creditors' meetings took place. A quick scan of Stubb's Gazette shows the auditor had 62 meetings scheduled.

The surge in insolvency work has been a nice earner for accountants because of the dearth of transaction work around and Grant Thornton has certainly picked up its fair share of it. It is the court-appointed administrator to Quinn Insurance and the examiner to Aer Arann.

With no sign of a let-up in the number of companies failing, there should be plenty more work for Grant Thornton and other insolvency experts to come.

Good news for O'Callaghan

Better news reaches us from Houghton Harcourt Mifflin, the giant book publisher run by Barry O'Callaghan. Earlier this year he saw the value of his stake in the company destroyed after its banks and bondholders took control following a restructuring of its debts.

However, in an interview with The Bookseller magazine last week O'Callaghan said the company was in a much better position and its debt is "completely restructured" now. The debt burden was built up as a result of massive leveraged takeovers by O'Callaghan. So is he ruling out any more acquisitions? "Never say never," he told The Bookseller.

PwC back in AIB

PricewaterhouseCoopers moved into AIB last week at the behest of the NTMA, which is working on recapitalising the battered bank. Bankcentre will be familiar ground for PwC, which was the AIB auditor for 36 years until 2002 when John Rusnak's dodgy forex trading was rumbled.

It was one of the firm's biggest Irish clients, generating fees of about €2.5m per annum before PwC lost the job. Just what PwC is doing in there is a closely-guarded secret with the NTMA and Department of Finance being very vague about their activities.

From bananas to Nama

The landmark High Court challenge taken by developer Paddy McKillen to his loans going into Nama kicked off last week and sees two big rivals squaring off each other in another crucial court case. Nama's defence is being mounted by attorney-general Paul Gallagher while McKillen has barrister Michael Cush in his corner. The two legal eagles were on opposing sides in the state's first civil insider dealing case taken by Fyffes against DCC. Gallagher was on the banana company's side in that challenge, which was defeated, though DCC later lost a Supreme Court appeal of the ruling. The Fyffes-DCC case has gone down in legal history and McKillen's challenge to Nama will be no less important.