Creating billion-euro businesses with global scale a key goal for new Enterprise Ireland chairman

New Enterprise Ireland (EI) chairman Michael Carey plans to make the development of large-scale indigenous companies a key goal in his five-year term with the State agency.

Mr Carey was appointed as EI chairman by Minister for Enterprise Simon Coveney earlier this month following a Public Appointments Service process. He is the first EI client (via the East Coast Bakehouse biscuit maker he co-founded with his wife Alison Cowzer) and the first entrepreneur to hold the role, succeeding accountant Terence O’Rourke in the post.

He is also chair of the Housing Agency (in his second five-year term), and a former chair of Bord Bia, a State agency that promotes Irish food exports.

Speaking to The Irish Times Mr Carey said: “The client should be the core of everything that EI does. And we should see ourselves as the best professional services firm in the country. Currently, indigenous business generates about 15 per cent of corporation tax, that should be a lot higher. Something that I really want to help Enterprise Ireland on is getting more businesses in Ireland of scale. Billion-euro businesses should be the target. There should be lots of them.

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“There are two sides to that. One is start-ups of scale that have a chance to become really big, and then businesses that are established and have the ambition to grow. Enterprise Ireland can have a real role to play in supporting that transition. And that’s really exciting. If we could support the creation of really global businesses that would be transformative for the economy.”

Mr Carey said East Coast Bakehouse, which started trading in mid 2016, is now profitable, having been buffeted by the effects of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic, and soaring energy costs following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “That derailed us a bit and slowed us down but only slowed us down. But we’re in good shape now. and beginning to think about what’s the next phase for the business.”

Mr Carey said the company would post revenues for the year to the end of next February of about €18 million, three times the level of a year earlier, but the revenue run rate is now hitting a level that could deliver turnover of €25 million in a full year. Its workforce has doubled to 130 staff.

East Coast Bakehouse also recently refinanced its debt, switching lenders from Ulster Bank (which is exiting the Republic) to a finance house called Upstream in Northern Ireland. The company also added about €3 million in additional equity investment over the past year. Mr Carey and Ms Cowzer own the majority of the business.

The food company’s domestic business has doubled while its export business has grown strongly, helped by winning contracts with Asda and Aldi in the UK, Mr Carey said. “The biscuit market has had no innovation [for years]. We’re in the right place at the right time.”