Lynch in line to close in on Greenstar

PHILIP LYNCH has Greenstar, NTR's waste management subsidiary, in his sights.

Since early January, Mr Lynch has spent €130 million through IAWS Co-op building a strategic 26% stake in NTR, best known for its toll road operations round the M50 in Dublin.

Weekend reports, which said that Mr Lynch was after Airtricity, 51% of which is owned by NTR, have been denied.

NTR believes that Mr Lynch has a plan to add Greenstar to his expanding operations in IAWS Co-op. The co-op is separate from IAWS Plc, the publicly quoted company.

Both market sources and NTR believe that Mr Lynch is after Greenstar, which has been expanding significantly in the past few years.

Tom Roche NTR's chairman and largest shareholder proved that by spending 46m of his own money to protect his controlling interest in NTR.

Mr Roche has built up his extra stakeholding in NTR to over 46% by paying between €23m and €24m for 1.9m shares.

Back in October, the shares traded at €13 per share on the gray market.

Mr Roche would not have forked out that kind of money on the shares unless he saw Mr Lynch's share buying as hostile, the markets believe.

They also want to know if the stake was passive why Mr Lynch did not stop before he got over the 25% stockholding in NTR, which gives him certain leverage over NTR.

Those who know Mr Lynch well say he never took a passive stake in a company in his life.

However, an opinion piece in the Farmers Journal some time back suggested Mr Lynch has no hostile intentions with regard to NTR. At the time it looked as if the source was very close to Mr Lynch.

After Mr Roche, Mr Lynch, through IAWS Co-op, is the single biggest shareholder in NTR. Before Mr Lynch turns his attention on NTR, as many believe he will, he has other fish to fry.

At present he is trying to engineer a merger with the Bandon-based South Western Services (SWS) that looks to be going his way.

Its future will be decided in the coming weeks and an awful lot is riding on the outcome of that negotiation. Dairygold, Bandon, Drinagh, Lisavaird and Barryroe co-ops are the chief stakeholders in SWS.

Management have a passive 25% stake and favour staying out of Mr Lynch's clutches at this stage, but they have no voting rights on the company's future.

When the SWS deal is out of the way Mr Lynch will then set about floating the company on the gray market. When Greenstar becomes a target remains to be seen.