Telecoms tycoon Denis O'Brien has boosted his stake in rival Sir Anthony O'Reilly's Independent News & Media (IN&M) to more than 15 per cent, writes Barry O'Halloran.
As a result of share purchases made last week, Mr O'Brien now holds more than 121.4 million units in the media group, a holding of 15.37 per cent, according to a notice that IN&M released to the Irish Stock Exchange yesterday.
Last night's IN&M closing price of €2.373 a share values Mr O'Brien's stake at just over €288 million.
Estimates of the total amount that he has spent building up his holding come to about €300 million.
The document released to the stock exchange indicates that Mr O'Brien bought 3.5 million shares in the media group on January 3rd through a number of third parties, including Allied Irish Nominees, Barclays Bank and a leading Irish stockbroker.
On the basis of the price range in which IN&M traded on the day, Mr O'Brien spent more than €8 million on the shares.
Mr O'Brien has been buying shares in IN&M for almost two years, but has never disclosed his intentions in relation to the company. Sir Anthony has also been active in the market since Mr O'Brien last disclosed that he had been buying shares in the company in mid-December.
The IN&M chief executive acquired blocks of one million shares in the company on four separate occasions just before Christmas.
Mr O'Brien has been a vocal critic of Sir Anthony's leadership of the media group.
Early last month, he called for Sir Anthony's resignation on the basis that, at the time, the group had lost close to €1 billion of its value during a general share-price slump that hit the Irish stock market.
The rivalry between Mr O'Brien and IN&M's chief executive has been growing since the Sir Anthony-led Valentia consortium outbid Mr O'Brien for Irish telecoms company Eircom in 2002.
In the Republic, Mr O'Brien's Communicorp owns national commercial broadcaster Today FM, which it bought last year from British group Emap.
As a result, the Competition Authority ordered Communicorp to sell the Dublin-based radio station, FM104. Communicorp completed a €50 million deal with UTV as 2007 came to a close.
