Macquarie Bank will oversee the sale of stricken Irish company Quinn Insurance.

As detailed in the current edition of insuranceNEWS (the magazine), Quinn Insurance and its sister firm Quinn Healthcare are on the market to repay the debts of parent company Quinn Group, which according to some reports must refinance some €700 million ($999 million) to stay in business.

Quinn Insurance was placed into administration by Ireland’s Financial Regulator in March after it breached EU solvency requirements by lending Quinn Group €1.2 billion ($1.7 billion) through a series of transactions.

The business is still hugely profitable, earning about €300 million ($424 million) in profits every year. According to administrator Grant Thornton, 47 companies across Ireland, the UK, Europe and the US have expressed an interest in purchasing Quinn Insurance.

Grant Thornton announced last week it received 1100 applications for voluntary redundancies from within Quinn Insurance, far exceeding the planned 902 job cuts.

On June 11,170 staff members were made redundant. The remaining redundancies will be carried out over the next 15 months.