The Iseq 20 was launched two decades ago to showcase the largest of then 65 companies listed on the Irish stock market.
News on Wednesday that Datalex, a retail software provider to airlines, is delisting next month leaves the entire market hurtling towards just 20 stocks.
After a wave of exits over the past decade and dearth of initial public offerings (IPOs), there are only 25 listed companies on the exchange, known as Euronext Dublin.
Dalata Hotel Group agreed earlier this month to be bought by a Scandinavian consortium for €1.4 billion. UK-based Aquila European Renewables, which took out a dual listing in Dublin two years ago in a failed effort to boost trading in its shares, is in wind-down, as is Malin Corporation, the life sciences investment firm that floated 10 years ago, and Donegal Investment Group.
Defections by the likes of DCC, Greencore and Grafton Group from the Dublin market have been followed in recent years by three heavyweights – CRH, Flutter Entertainment and Smurfit Westrock (formerly Smurfit Kappa) – ditching their Irish quotations in favour of primary listings in New York. Private equity cash has swallowed up others, including Applegreen and Hibernia Reit.
Titanium minerals miner Kenmare Resources last month told its former managing director, Michael Carvill, and an Abu Dhabi fund that had been circling it to take a hike. But might they come back?
The only two Irish IPO companies this decade – HealthBeacon and Corre Energy – are no longer on the market. HealthBeacon, a medical tech company, succumbed to examinership in late 2023 and was rescued by a US company, while Corre, a developer of storage solutions for renewable energy, delisted earlier this year.
There was something of an inevitability about Datalex waving the white flag after 25 years on the market. Its main shareholder, Dermot Desmond, has seen his stake rise from 29 per cent to almost 50 per cent in a little over three years – as he participated in two separate equity raises from the company, primarily to repay expensive rescue loans from the billionaire himself.
Two other investors, Nick Furlong’s Pageant Investments and former Glen Dimplex chief executive Sean O’Driscoll, own a further 20 per cent between them. There appears to be little appetite outside this group for another equity raise as Datalex seeks to raise €6 million to fund growth. It’s now resorting to a debt-raise instead.
