Pearse Flynn red cards his 4% Celtic stake

CORK-born businessman Pearse Flynn has sold a 4% stake in Glasgow Celtic Football Club — shares of which were slightly up yesterday at just over 50p.

According to a statement made by Celtic to the London Stock Exchange, yesterday, Mr Flynn disposed of 800,000 convertible preferred ordinary shares on February 23. The stake was held by Natwest FIS Nominees Ltd and represented a 4.44% shareholding.

Celtic’s last annual report, for the full-year to the end of June, 2006 stated that the 4.44% stake was Mr Flynn’s complete holding in the club up to that point.

He still has a substantial interest in Scottish football though; he is chairman of Premier League side Livingston, for which he headed up the successful takeover consortium, Lionheart three years ago. At the time, the club was £3.2m (€4.69m) in debt and the stadium company, which was 75% owned by the club, owed a further £7.2m.

Other members of Lionheart included Maurice Smith, a well-known media consultant in Scotland and former business editor of BBC Scotland and Scottish-based accountant and former Damovo executive Vivien Kyles.

The Ballycotton born-Flynn’s fortune was largely made in telecoms, however. Since growing up here, he has lived in the US — where he worked in electronics and telecommunications with a number of companies including Wang, Compaq, Alcatel and Damovo (for which he once tried to lead a management buyout) — before moving to Scotland, where he has lived for the past two decades.