Newspaper group sold for €5.5m

Celtic Media Group, publisher of the Anglo-Celt, Meath Chronicle, and Westmeath Examiner newspapers, has been bought in a management buyout for €5.5m.

Celtic Media’s management team led by chief executive Frank Mulrennan, 51, who will take a 36% stake in the new venture, bought the company out of receivership, which was initiated on Wednesday by the Scottish-based board of directors of Celtic Media Group. The company’s finance director, Frank Long, 47, is understood to have 26% holding in the new company giving the pair control of the group. IBI Corporate Finance advised the management team on the acquisition.

The assets being acquired were put together at a cost of close to €65m in the early 2000s by the Scottish newspaper group Dunfermline and other investors who created Celtic Media.