Dunne forced to sell Jurys shares

PROPERTY developer Sean Dunne, who has offered to pay €260 million for Jurys Doyle’s key Ballsbridge site, is being forced to sell just over 3% of his 18.2% stake in the hotel chain.

The Irish Takeover panel accused Mr Dunne, a key player in the battle for control of Jurys Doyle’s 33 hotel chain, of breaking stock exchange rules.

In effect, Mr Dunne has been instructed to sell enough shares to bring his stake in the group down to less than 15%. Stock-market rules bar investors from purchasing company stakes of 10% or over in a seven-day period if the deal pushes the buyer’s stake to between 15% and 30% of the equity.

Between August 23 and 24 Mr Dunne bought 9.4 million Jurys Doyle shares, pushing his stake to 18.2% from 14.9%.

The shares have gained 44%, raising the company’s market value to €1.12 billion.

In July, Mr Dunne won an intense battle to buy the 4.8 acre Ballsbridge site. In the process he fended off a number of other property developers who were interested in the site or in making a possible bid for the entire group.

Irish house prices have tripled since 1996, making the real estate attractive because of its redevelopment potential.

Jurys Doyle announced on Wednesday its intention to sell the remainder of the Ballsbridge site including the Berkeley Court Hotel and the Jurys Montrose Hotel further up the road.

They could be worth a total of €200m and, as the board advised, yield a far better return to shareholders than retaining the sites with hotels on them.

Quinlan Private and a group led by Patrick Kelly both said they were considering a takeover approach.

Meanwhile, Liam Carroll, who purchased property company Dunloe Ewart Plc for €197m in 2002, yesterday spent €64m to buy 3.1 million shares of Jurys Doyle.

He has a 6.7% stake in the group and is also emerging as a potential bidder for the group.

Precinct Investments, which had proposed offering €1.1bn for Jurys Doyle, said on Wednesday it was not going ahead with the bid.

Precinct, with the banking of the Reubens brothers of London, were considered a racing certainty to succeed given their considerable wealth.

However, the arrival of Mr Dunne on the scene seemed to scupper any chance of Precinct’s unsolicited offer succeeding.

Simon Reubens is still seen as a potential outside bidder but would need clearance from the Takeover Panel to proceed.

Liam Carroll’s incursion into the market rises further questions, but so far no firm bid has emerged for the group despite four months of posturing by various local and international groups.