Doyle family expected to vote in favour of €260m Ballsbridge sale

THE Doyle family is expected to vote for the sale of the 4.8 acres Ballsbridge site to property developer Sean Dunne for €260 million at the Extraordinary General Meeting on 27 September.

The notification of the EGM, issued late last Friday, said the Doyle family, which is acting in consort, had not decided how to vote. Weekend speculation said the family could vote against the deal and mount a bid to keep the entire group in tact.

Reliable sources suggest it would be wrong to conclude the family is against it, because the document said they had yet to make up their minds on how to vote.

If it goes through, the Doyle sisters stand to make €90m profit and according to a well-placed source, they do not have a conflict about the sale at this stage. They have serious difficulty, however, in seeing the hotel legacy of their late father, PV Doyle, torn down to fuel the property boom.

Weekend reports speculating they would bid for the group are also said to be wide of the mark, but the endgame is still far from certain.

Liam Carroll of Dunloe Ewart has more than 8% of the equity in the group and Sean Dunne pushed his stake up beyond 23% yesterday.

He is understood to want 29% of the equity, but his only interest is protecting the Ballsbridge deal.

Provided he does nothing to upset the Doyle sisters in the meantime, the Irish Examiner understands the family will vote for the site sale to him.

In the market yesterday, the Beatty family picked up another 0.3% of the equity bringing their stake to 7.9%.

Like the Doyles, they were against the Precinct bid that ultimately valued the company at e1.14 billion.

They have indicated their intention to vote in favour of the sale of the Ballsbridge land to Mr Dunne.

And Jurys will be out of pocket to the tune of €2.5m if the sale of the Ballsbridge site falls through. The money was spent on its legal and financial advisers to the deal.

Of the €2.5m, some €850,000 will go to Vincent & Beatty solicitors. The firm is headed by Walter Beatty, the former Jurys chairman who owns 8% of the hotel chain.

A further €825,000 was paid out to CB Richars Ellis Gunne, which acted as estate agents for Jurys. Peter Malone, a non-executive director of Jurys, is chairman of Gunne.

It is also believed Jurys has spent €500,000 on financial advice for fending off the bid for the company by Precinct Investments.

The value of the company has shot up by 40% since Precinct first indicated an offer of €15.25 to buy the group back in May.