ORGANO INVESTMENTS, a company controlled by Irish investors Neill Hughes and Peter Crowley, has taken a 6.6 per cent stake in the Belfast-based broadcaster UTV Media.

Organo bought 6.3 million shares in the Northern Irish broadcaster, which also owns a number of radio assets, for 116 pence (€1.45) each, it was announced yesterday.

The move follows the building up of a 15 per cent stake in UTV by investment firm TVC Holdings last week.

UTV, which recently conducted a rights offer accepted by 41 per cent of its shareholders, is considered an attractive target by investors after its share price fell 71 per cent in the past 12 months.

The company is listed on both the London Stock Exchange and the Irish Stock Exchange.

A spokesman for Organo said the investors in the vehicle had high regard for the management of UTV, and believed the stock to be undervalued.

Mr Hughes and Mr Crowley run FL Partners, an investment company that owns the Racing Post newspaper in the UK.

UTV, which shows the programmes of broadcaster ITV in Northern Ireland, owns a range of multimedia assets, including 24 local radio stations - among them Dublin's FM104 - and British national sports radio station Talksport.

An analyst at Davy Research, Stephen Furlong, said there were "a number of parties out there who didn't consider UTV to be expensive" and judged it to have sound management and a good balance sheet.

About of consolidation of radio assets was taking place with many radio deals done for "chunky rates of cashflow", Mr Furlong said, making UTV an attractive target for investors taking a three to five-year view.

UTV's share price closed at 132.5 pence on the LSE yesterday, up 10 per cent.