TVC sells half of its UTV stake for €22m

Investment firm, TVC Holdings has sold nearly half of its shareholding in UTV Media for over €22m.

The move — which sees TVC selling 7.6m shares and lowering its stake from 18% to just over 10% — means the Dublin firm has made around €80m on disposals in the past two and a half years through the sale of its stakes in specialist technology firms like Norkom and Shenick Network Systems, as well as a number of unquoted tech investments.

The company also returned around €50m to shareholders last year by way of a special dividend.

Yesterday’s announcement also means that — taking into account dividend payments — TVC has recovered the full cost of its original investment in the Belfast media group; having spent €27.3m on an 18% stake six years ago.

The Dublin-based investment firm will still hold 9.64m shares in UTV, representing a 10.05% shareholding in the business.

TVC’s current market value is just under €82.4m and Davy Stockbrokers estimates the company has a book value of €90.1m — 32% of which is made up of its remaining UTV stake, 59% cash and 9% unquoted investments. TVC’s cash and UTV stake account for 91% of its estimated equity value.

TVC’s share price was up by over 3%, in Dublin yesterday, closing at 93c.