Lynch ‘will not seek NTR board seat’
At the meeting, NTR chairman Tom Roche welcomed Mr Lynch to his first AGM and during the meeting confirmed he had not sought a seat on the board.
Afterwards, Mr Lynch insisted his €130 million investment in NTR was passive, adding he was looking forward to taking €2m in dividends for IAWS Co-op from the group in the current year.
Mr Lynch said: “We don’t ever go where we are not wanted. And there is no hostility. Tom Roche is a very good guy. I know him quite well and he knows where we are coming from. We didn’t enter the share race as a hostile player and never would.”
It made no sense for him to seek a seat on the board when his own company was evolving into waste management and wind energy areas in which NTR has serious involvement. Tom Roche “knew what we were doing from the time he bought the first tranche of shares back in January”. He didn’t know that IAWS was gong to buy 26% of the equity. “We bought up to 26% of the stock because it was a question of value,” he said.
Mr Roche spent over €1.3m of his family fortune buying up any loose shares on the market at the time of Mr Lynch’s swoop, indicating he saw the IAWS buy-up as hostile, analysts said at the time.
After the AGM, as if to prove a point, Mr Lynch and Mr Roche sat together for lunch with any potential hostility between the two apparently a figment of the media’s imagination.
Independent Senator Shane Ross addressed the meeting from the chairman’s podium and said the group was “part of the problem on the West Link and this stage and not part of the solution”.
Because of the long delays and the frustrations of motorists “this will be resolved at the end of the day by politicians”.
He warned that frustration of motorists would result in a buyback of NTR by the State eventually.
That was rejected by NTR chief executive Jim Barry, who said it has never come up for discussion with the Government or the National Roads Authority.
The senator demanded to know whether it would introduce barrier-free tolling. Again, Mr Barry said barrier-free tolling would require new legislation to deal with people who avoid paying tolls.
The firm was the subject of controversy when it increased charges on the West Link toll bridge by 30 cent to €1.80.
