SWS takeover ‘within three months’
The deal on the table is worth €70 million, of which €17.5m will go to the top 10 SWS executives.
It is expected that chief executive Kieran Calnan will pocket close to €6m from the deal.
John McCarthy and the other key senior executives will walk away with more than €1m each.
The other top executives in the company are: Tim O’Kelly, Tim Cowhig, Jim Galvin, Gretta Crowley, Padraig Egan, Rose McHugh, John Carroll and John Connolly.
SWS is an agri-services company with interests in natural resources, wind energy, forestry, bio-mass, waste and outsourcing services.
IAWS Co-op has offered €70m for key parts of SWS, which they will build on to existing operations.
The plan is to float the new group on the stock exchange by mid-2006.
That is the proposed plan, but much will hinge on the integration of SWS’s waste management and wind operations with IAWS Co-op’s businesses.
Driving the deal is IAWS Co-op chief executive Philip Lynch, who is still chairman of IAWS Plc, which emerged out of the co-op in 1988.
The co-op is about to sever all ties with the Plc and is transferring €120m worth of shares from the Plc back to co-op members as part of the conversion.
As chief executive of IAWS Co-op, which will change its name next week to One51, Mr Lynch has taken a 26% stake in NTR Plc at a cost of nearly €130m.
That investment is now worth €30m more than when the stake was purchased in the early part of 2005.
IAWS Co-op’s other assets include the Irish Pride bakery, Premier Proteins, a 50% stake in Greenore Port and a 45% stake in French fertiliser firm Cedest Engrais.
The SWS Group is owned by the four West Cork co-ops and Dairygold.
But the top management team in SWS held a passive 40% equity stake in the Bandon-based operation until recently.
That was reduced to 25% before the talks with IAWS got underway.
Next Thursday, IAWS will get confirmatory approval from shareholders for its conversion to a publicly-limited company at another extraordinary general meeting.
IAWS plans to transfer €230m of assets to One51 once members approve the changes they voted for last week.
The company is also reported to be in discussions with the owners of waste management outfit Oxigen about a takeover.
