Final curtain falls on Xtra-vision’s high street retail presence

Movie-vending arm of business is put into liquidation

End credits: Xtra-vision operated about 80 stores around the country and employed nearly 600 people at the time it closed. Photo: Mark Condren

John Mulligan Twitter Email

July 07 2021 02:30 AM

The final death knell appears to have sounded for the Xtra-vision brand on Ireland’s shopping streets, with its movie-vending arm having been put into liquidation.

Controlled by UK investment firm Hilco, Xtra-vision’s bricks-and-mortar stores closed five years ago, unable to survive the onslaught of online streaming.

The vending machines had been located in as many as 100 SuperValu outlets across the country.

The Xtra-vision company behind the vending business has just been placed in voluntary liquidation, with a creditors meeting having been held towards the end of last month.

Nicholas O’Dwyer of Grant Thornton was appointed liquidator of the firm.

The Xtra-vision vending business had been launched to fanfare in 2013, with machines initially installed in Spar and Eurospar outlets in and around Dublin.

The last set of publicly-available accounts for Xtra-vision Vending show that it had a more than €1.5m shareholder deficit at the end of 2019. It paid almost €180,000 in loan interest that year.

A liquidator was appointed to the main Xtra-vision business in early 2016.

It operated about 80 stores around the country and employed nearly 600 people at the time it closed.

At one stage, the company even floated on the stock market.

It was the end of a chequered history for the chain, which was founded in 1981 by Richard Murphy. At one stage, the company even floated on the stock market.

But it began to get into financial trouble long before the advent of the internet and video streaming.

In 1993, it went into what would be its first examinership, with HSBC and venture capital group 3i then investing in the business. Businessman Peter O’Grady-Walshe, who’d been NCB’s corporate finance director, was installed as managing director of the chain.

In 1997, Xtra-vision was sold to US group Blockbuster for about €25m. The US company – which would itself later fall victim to the rise of Netflix – sucked about $100m (€84.5m) from the Irish business during its ownership of it.

In 2009, Mr O’Grady-Walshe, backed by Nick Furlong’s Pageant Holdings, acquired Xtra-vision from Blockbuster. But the Irish chain went into examinership in 2011, and secured rent reductions and an additional investment of €6m.

In 2013, it was acquired from receivership by Hilco.