Irish duo invest €9m in UTV Media

IRISH financiers Neill Hughes and Peter Crowley have bought 6.3 million shares in UTV Media, giving them a 6.57% stake in the Belfast-based broadcasting company worth around £7.3 million (€9.18m).

The duo bought the stake via their investment vehicle, Organo Investments, which is understood to have been established with the specific focus of investing in UTV.

Organo, which paid £1.16 for each share, made no comment on whether or not it planned to invest further in the company, but called it “a good investment opportunity”.

According to a spokesperson: “It was a good investment opportunity which came along and the company was very happy to be able to respond to it. Organo is well disposed towards UTV and views the investment as very good value.”

Mr Hughes and Mr Crowley — through their FL Partners company — bought the Racing Post horse racing newspaper last year from the Trinity Mirror group for £263m.

Organo’s investment in UTV follows that of TVC Holdings, the Dublin-based venture capitalist, last week.

TVC initially purchased an 11% stake in UTV for €19m at the beginning of last week, increasing that to 15% later in the week.

The two investments in UTV by TVC — formerly Trinity Venture Capital — were in line with that company’s policy of increasing its stakes in publicly-quoted companies — it owns a stake in Norkom Technologies, which provides financial services companies with anti-fraud and money laundering software solutions.

Nobody from UTV Media was available for comment yesterday.