Sean O’Driscoll, the former Glen Dimplex chief executive, has increased his stake in travel retail software company Datalex to above the 10 per cent threshold.
The businessman, who has a track record as a patient investor in Irish stocks, now owns almost 10.4 per cent of the Dublin-listed company, according to a stock exchange filing published on Monday.
The holding is up from a 9 per cent interest declared in December and a 6.2 per cent holding last August, before Datalex went about raising €25 billion from investors in a multipronged share sale at a price of 45 cents each.
Shares in Datalex, which is focused on the airlines sector, have rallied more than 16 per cent so far this year, to 40.8c, on mounting hopes that the group will break even this year on a basis of earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda), following years of turbulence.
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The company used most of the €25 million raised last September to repay loans to its main shareholder, Dermot Desmond, who had been a consistent provider of finance since the company was rocked six years ago by an accounting scandal and, subsequently, the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mr Dermond’s IIU Nominees unit increased his stake in the company to 49.3 per cent from 40.3 per cent as a result of the equity raise. Datalex owed another Desmond vehicle, Tireragh, more than €19 million, including built-up and unpaid interest and fees before transaction.
Datalex hired Jonathan Rockett, the former managing director of mobile top-up platform Ding, as its chief executive in late 2023, after the year had spent several years refocusing from being a provider of bespoke systems for airlines to a product-based software firm.
Mr O’Driscoll is also a big investor in Malin, in which he accumulated close to a 12 per cent stake. The stock has jumped 72 per cent over the past 12 months as it returns excess capital to shareholders.
He is set to receive more than €17 million for almost three-quarters of his stake under a share repurchase programme that is due to complete next month.
The businessman bought at 7.7 per cent stake in Roebuck Food Group, a London-listed investment firm focused the food and agribusiness sectors, as part of a fundraising round in December to buy Galway-based, climate-focused agtech start-up GlasPort Bio.
