Lynch has neither sought nor been offered a seat on NTR’s board

IAWS Co-op boss, Philip Lynch, has neither sought nor been offered a seat on the board of toll road to waste management group NTR Plc.

Jim Barry, chief executive, NTR Plc said: "It was a matter for the activities committee" as to who was given a seat on the board.

Mr Lynch has not requested a seat at the NTR table despite having spent €130m buying up 26% of NTR's equity at an average price of €19 since January 2005 on behalf of the co-op for which he has major development plans.

Mr Lynch has insisted his investment was passive, but there has been much speculation that he wanted to add Greenstar to his own waste management portfolio in IAWS.

On that, Mr Barry made it clear yesterday the group's waste management division is not for sale. Mr Barry was speaking at the launch of the toll road to waste management group's results for 2005 which came in ahead of market expectations.

NTR which operates the East and West link toll bridges, has reported profits of €18.2m for last year, a rise of 8%. The results came in ahead of analysts' predictions.

NTR is also involved in waste management, wind energy and broadband. The company's operations enjoyed an increase in sales of almost 30% to €273m year-on-year.

Operating profits were ahead by 19.5% to €27.8m while group capital investment amounted to €202m last year from €98m in 2003.

NTR has increased the tolls it charges by 38% since the beginning of last year to €1.80 on the West Link.

NTR says its contribution to the State from the tolls has risen by €10m to €33m in the year under review.

It commented yesterday, following a weekend article pointing out it takes €300,000 per week from the toll road operations, that the state gets €600,000 per week. The company also made a €30m investment in the construction of its second landfill site in Co Meath. Revenues at its waste operations Greenstar rose by 8% to €82m, profits after tax rose 16% to €9.6m.

During the year NTR invested €142m in Airtricity, its wind power operation. Airtricity now has 177MW of generating capacity in operation with customer numbers up 24% to 36,500. Profits before interest and tax rose from €1.5m in 2003 to €5.4m and turnover was up over 37% to €126.7m.

NTR's Irish Broadband company completed a major €18m fundraising round during the year and it was awarded 16 new licences by the communications regulator ComReg.