John Gallagher has done very nicely out of Celtic Utilities after founding the company just three years ago with venture capital backing from ICC. Mr Gallagher is now getting a nice bundle of cash #1.1 million, more than #38 million worth of convertible loan notes and almost a million National Toll Roads shares for selling his controlling stake in Celtic to NTR.
The share issue alone gives Mr Gallagher almost 4 per cent of NTR's enlarged share capital and puts him ahead of such investment heavyweights as AIB and Irish Life on the NTR share register. One question, however, that has not been answered is why ICC decided to hold onto its 23.1 per cent stake in Celtic Utilities rather than accepting an offer that would have given it a decent-size chunk of NTR shares.
Even NTR chief executive Jim Barry conceded that the price being paid for Celtic is high and that NTR is paying partly for the potential future value of the business. So why did ICC not do the same deal as John Gallagher?
Maybe ICC isn't as convinced as other institutional investors about the prospects for an infrastructural development company like NTR. But most of those on the NTR register are pension funds who have a longer-term perspective than venture capital companies who look for a shorter timeframe for realising their investments.
By any standards, the Celtic deal is a big move for NTR, but one still can't help feeling that the prospects for the company are clouded by the uncertainty over the National Development Plan. NTR really needs a big, big deal, such as one of the larger motorway projects, if it is to develop the scale that would allow it convert from an unlisted to a listed plc, with institutional investors having a direct market for the shares.
Most of the big motorway projects seem destined to suffer from rows over the very concept of tolling, while waste management projects may suffer from the persistent nimbyism which demands that new landfill sites be built - as long as they are miles away from where one lives.
If NTR does manage to carve out a decent chunk of the infrastructural projects in the National Development Plan, if it gets sizeable waste management projects and if it gets its planned offshore wind farm up and running, then it could become a major Irish company. Those sort of projects will require sizeable capital investment, especially for an unlisted company like NTR.
The company is still small - worth less than #200 million based on the valuation of the shares being issued to John Gallagher, and will be paying a sharply reduced dividend in future years. Against that background, investors would be unwise to go rushing to the internal market in NTR shares operated through Davy.
It's more than six years now since the Miller Fisher financial services group emerged from the reverse takeover of the tiddly exploration company Celtic Gold. What a dismal six years it has been, with Miller Fisher lurching from crisis to crisis, culminating with the ignominy of last week's decision by Fidelity to unload its entire 4.9 million shares - or just under 3 per cent - at a knockdown price.
The price that Fidelity got for its stake was not disclosed but in the past week the shares have been trading at little more than the 6p sterling. That compares with their 27p high of the past year. Believe it or not, it's just four years since the group was toying with an £84 million bid for Hambro Insurance Services in the UK, only to have its offer dismissed out of hand by Hambro.
Since then, Miller Fisher has made a plethora of acquisitions but has gone nowhere and earlier this year pulled out of takeover talks with undisclosed parties. The shares were 14p when those talks ended; they are now just 5p. Shareholders have a right to know what's going on. If the likes of Fidelity decides to sell out for pennies, then other shareholders have good reason to be worried.
Current Account has been amused at the somewhat panicky response from Ryanair to Go's mini-assault on its Irish business. A few low-cost flights a day to Edinburgh from Go has caused Michael O'Leary such angst that he has decided to suffer what he claims is an awful charges structure from Aer Rianta. He is now actually putting more passengers through an airport that the Ryanair boss has described, in his own inimitable fashion, as "the black hole of Calcutta".
Now Ryanair cannot have it both ways. If the Dublin Airport fees structure is so uncompetitive against the fees Ryanair is charged by the various European airfields it uses, then surely adding a Dublin-Edinburgh route doesn't make any sense.
It makes obvious sense for Ryanair to respond to the Go challenge on its existing Dublin-Glasgow run. But to open up a brand new route out of Dublin after publicly stating that it would never do so until Aer Rianta changed its charging structure represents an amazing volte face.
Given its size, Ryanair will probably win a long-term price war against the likes of Go. But will it continue with the Edinburgh route if it does manage to price Go out of the Edinburgh route?
If anybody ever doubted where Philip Lynch is bringing IAWS, then the #64 million takeover of the American speciality baker, La Brea Bakery, is a clear indication that North America is the promised land for the foods group.
That investment in La Brea comes just three months after IAWS announced its #225 million joint venture with the Canadian restaurant chain Tim Hortons, a move that will involve setting up three state-of-the-art bakeries in Canada.
Both moves into baking in North America are low-risk. The link-up with Tim Hortons gives the Canadian joint venture a market of 2,000 outlets throughout Canada and another 200 in the US. The La Brea deal also seems low risk given the market that the Californian group has carved out over the past 12 years.
In the light of its increasing exposure to the North American market, it seems an opportune time for IAWS to try and extend its shareholder base in Canada and the US. Fidelity is already by far IAWS's biggest shareholder, after the IAWS Coop, and other American interests should follow on the back of these latest investments.
