Setanta buyers’ race against time to secure funds

THE prospective new owners of the Irish operations of sports broadcaster Setanta are understood to be in a race against time to put in place the necessary funding to buy the business, before the Irish transmission rights for English Premier League football are put out to tender in the coming weeks.

Setanta’s original founders – Michael O’Rourke and Leonard Ryan – are teaming up with 20% shareholder, music promoter Denis Desmond to buy the remaining 80% of the company from the recently failed Setanta Sports Holdings, which went into receivership a couple of weeks ago.

The three parties are understood to have reached an initial agreement to buy the shareholdings in Setanta Ireland previously owned by investment houses Doughty Hanson (which also owns TV3), Balderton Capital and Goldman Sachs. However, the prospect of actually finalising a deal and buying the Irish operations is not likely to be realised for a number of weeks, despite some reports suggesting a deal would be done by close of business yesterday.