Shareholders in Irish Continental Group (ICG) have roundly rejected a €24-a-share offer from management buyout group Aella, which is being led by the ferry company's chief executive Eamonn Rothwell.
In a poll vote on the resolution, 10.65 million shares were cast against the motion while 1.97 million were voted in favour of Aella's offer. Aella was precluded from voting its own shares.
Moonduster, a consortium comprising the Philip Lynch-led One51 Capital and the Cork-based Doyle Shipping group, and property developer Liam Carroll are both believed to have voted against Aella's offer.
Aella is now precluded from making a bid for Irish Continental Group for 12 months, except with the consent of the Irish Takeover Panel.
Following the extraordinary general meeting of shareholders yesterday, John McGuckian, ICG's lead independent director, said he would now proceed to engage with Moonduster to see if it could produce a new offer for the company.
This seems unlikely, however, after Moonduster issued a statement yesterday saying that "representatives" of Aella had confirmed to it that the management buyout team "would not be prepared to accept an offer from Moonduster at any price".
"Based on these confirmations, Moonduster believes that there is no prospect at this time of any Moonduster scheme being successful and, therefore Moonduster believes there is little merit in the independent directors of ICG bringing forward a Moonduster scheme while this situation persists," the consortium said.
Moonduster's claim was rejected by Aella.
In a statement, the management buyout group said: "No meaningful engagement has taken place between Aella and Moonduster for a number of months and therefore Moonduster is not in a position to represent the views of Aella in this regard. Shareholders should place no reliance on the validity of any statement by Moonduster regarding the position of Aella now or in the future."
Moonduster yesterday confirmed that it had acquired an additional 126,023 shares in ICG at prices up to €25.40. This brings Moonduster's shareholding to 25.28 per cent.
Mr Carroll owns about 23.5 per cent of the company but has not made an offer. "He doesn't seem inclined to say anything to anybody," Mr McGuckian said.
Moonduster has asked the independent directors to initiate a competitive bid process but Aella has so far indicated nothing but opposition to such a move.
ICG's shares closed at €25.50 in Dublin yesterday, up 30 cent or 1.2 per cent.
The ICG saga has been rumbling since early March when Aella made an €18.50-a-share bid for ICG. This was trumped in June by Moonduster, which offered €22 a share. Aella topped this bid last month by making a €611.8 million cash bid for the ferry company.
The recent frenetic buying of ICG shares relates to the company's 33-acre site in Dublin Port, which is held on a long lease.
Mr McGuckian said yesterday that the independent directors had taken extensive advice on the worth of the site to ICG but he declined to say what value had been placed on the property.
Some experts have suggested it could be worth up to €30 million an acre.
Dublin City Council yesterday began a public consultation process on the best use of the port area into the future.
A new report from the council estimated that 55,000 people could be accommodated in the area if Dublin Port was relocated.
