Businessman Denis O'Brien has acquired a 6 per cent stake in Sterling Energy, a UK oil and gas exploration company listed on the Alternative Investment Market (Aim) in London.
In a surprise move, Mr O'Brien acquired 94.28 million shares in the exploration company on September 20th. He is believed to have paid about 10 pence a share, spending about £9.4 million (€13.5 million) on the holding.
Sterling Energy's shares closed in London yesterday at 11.5 pence each, leaving Mr O'Brien sitting on a paper profit of £1.4 million.
According to a statement released yesterday, Mr O'Brien owns 27.3 million shares personally while 66.9 million are held by Baycliffe Ltd, a company he controls and which has been buying shares on his behalf in Independent News & Media.
Mr O'Brien is now Sterling Energy's third-biggest shareholder, behind Amvescap and Capital Group.
Sterling was formed in October 2002 when it listed on Aim with a market cap of just £10 million. The company is now valued at £156 million, although it was valued as high as £250 million at one point.
Its shares traded at 18.75 pence in mid-November 2006 but the company has slowly fallen out of favour with the stock market.
In the first six months of this year, Sterling reported revenues of $45.1 million, marginally down on the same period of 2006. Its profit for the six-month period was $1.4 million (€980,000), down from $8.2 million a year earlier. The company posted a loss of $38.6 million in 2006.
Sterling said its group production would be an estimated 6,100 barrels of oil a day for the third quarter, a 25 per cent increase over the first half of this year.
Based in London, Sterling has assets in the Gulf of Mexico, onshore United States, Mauritania, Kurdistan and Madagascar.
The company was chaired until recently by Irishman Richard O'Toole and has raised money from investors here.
In March, the company completed a $145 million acquisition of Whittier Energy Corporation, a listed company in the United States with assets in onshore Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and in the Permian Basin.
The company has a financial interest in the Chinguetti field in Mauritania, where Ireland's Tullow Oil also has a 19 per cent interest. This field has proven problematic in recent times with oil reserves being downgraded.
Mr O'Brien owns the Digicel mobile phone operation. He has extensive radio interests in Ireland and central Europe and owns a 10.3 per cent stake in Independent News & Media.
