THE EXAMINER appointed to the ICR Motor Group of companies, which operates the Europcar, Alamo and National Car Rental franchises for the Republic, is “very hopeful” they can successfully emerge from examinership.

Michael McAteer, a partner in Grant Thornton, was appointed as examiner to the companies last Monday, but said he had already been contacted by a significant number of interested parties.

As well as operating the three car rental franchises, the group also comprises Irish Car Rentals, Irish Van Rentals and two Limerick car dealerships – Ennis Road Motors and Motorzone.

ICR Motor Group is a registered business name, and the main company in the group is Irish Car Rental (Holdings) Ltd. The most recent accounts filed at the Companies Registration Office show it made a pretax profit of €73,059 on turnover of €63.1 million in the year to the end of October 2007.

The accounts noted that ICR would take on the National and Alamo franchises for the Republic from July 2008 and would operate the Europcar franchise from May 2009.

The directors of the company at this time were John Culleton, Rosemary Fogarty, John Leahy, Walter Hobbs and Noel McSweeney, all of whom had shares in the company.

Mr Culleton and Mr Leahy, who co-founded the group, had 27.41 and 15.12 per cent of the share capital on October 31st, 2007.

While car dealerships have had to deal with falling sales in the last 18 months, car rental companies have also suffered because of a rapid drop in the resale value of their fleet.

Shareholders in car rental group Murray’s made a significant investment in the company last October after it went through an examinership process.

The ICR Motor Group employs 160 full-time staff and will continue to trade during the examinership.