Directors and managers of Irish-Malaysian engineering group Kentz netted almost £48 million (€64.3 million) as a result of its flotation on London's Alternative Investment Market (AIM) yesterday.
Kentz raised a total of £66.7 million through placing shares in London yesterday at 115 pence. According to its prospectus, selling shareholders received £47.9 million from the flotation, while the company itself received £18.8 million, which will be used to fund expansion and one acquisition before the year's end.
The biggest beneficiaries were Tan Sri Mohd Razali Abdul Rahman and Hassan Abas, who indirectly owned 30 million of the placed shares through a vehicle called Kerbet.
The pair own 90 per cent of Peremba, the Malaysian investment company that took a major stake in the Kentz group in the early 1990s, rescuing it from examinership.
Chief executive Hugh O'Donnell and executive director Noel Kelly both earned almost £2.9 million each. Two vehicles, Danache and Siemers, established for the benefit of 83 senior managers and employees, excluding the directors, got almost £8 million between them.
Its shares bucked the market trend yesterday, gaining 9 pence, or close to 8 per cent, to end the day at 124 pence.
Kentz specialises in designing and supplying control systems for plants involved in oil and gas refining, and chemical and pharmaceutical production. It employs 7,000 people and made €17 million profit on the back of €260 million turnover last year.
Speaking from Sakhalin Island off the east coast Russia, where the group is involved in a project with multi-national petroleum giant, Exxon, Mr O'Donnell said it intended using some of the proceeds to acquire a rival before the year's end, but would not reveal any further detail.
Mr O'Donnell said the group is focusing its expansion plans on the oil and gas industries, where strong prices and increasing demand are driving rapid growth. Kentz has a presence across the Middle East and other exploration centres, and is seeking to boost its presence in Alaska and Canada, both of which are major world centres for oil exploration and production.
Kentz has its roots in the old MF Kent business, which was placed under High Court protection from its creditors in the early 1990s after Hovissa, for which it was building a hotel in Barcelona, had to be given protection from its own creditors.
