SHAREHOLDERS IN property services group Veris will share €14.8 million if they approve a €51 million takeover deal agreed yesterday with a US multinational.
Campbell Catering parent Armarak has agreed to buy Veris’ property and facilities management businesses for €50.8 million. The deal is subject to shareholder approval.
The company provides facilities management, security and other services for commercial and other properties. Its clients include Dundrum Shopping Centre and the Square in Tallaght.
Veris was worth €7.7 million when its shares closed at 30 cent in Dublin on Wednesday. Armarak is paying a total of €1.89 a share for the two businesses, which are the company’s remaining operations.
Of this, Veris shareholders will be paid 55 cent a share, a total of €14.8 million. The company floated four years ago this week at €1.30. It reached highs of €4.85 a share on a number of occasions in the final three months of 2006. It issued new shares on several occasions since flotation as part payment for a number of acquisitions it made following flotation in 2005.
According to the company’s own figures, businessman Niall McFadden, who originally put the group together, held almost 3.34 million shares, or 13 per cent, of the business in July.
On that basis, he will receive around €1.8 million for his stake. Listed Boundary Capital, in which Mr McFadden is a shareholder, had close to 2.5 million shares and will receive over €1.3 million. Boundary also owns a stake in Dublin department store Arnotts. Last week, the High Court awarded National Irish Bank an €8 million judgement against another McFadden company, RQB.
Other beneficiaries include Bank of Ireland Asset Management – €550,000 – and directors Gary Duffy and Martin McMahon, who were awarded €1.2 million and €630,000 respectively.
But almost €31 million, the biggest single share of the purchase price, will go to repaying debts owed to State-owned Anglo Irish Bank, which backed the company and provided loans for its acquisitions.
Armarak is a global services management group with a turnover of $13.2 billion and 50,000 staff worldwide, 4,000 of whom are working in Ireland.
Its Irish chief executive, Joan O’Shaughnessy, said yesterday that the Veris business promises to be a good fit with the group’s existing Irish operations, the biggest of which is contract caterer Campbells.
She told The Irish Timesthat businesses and landlords now want one contractor to provide all services, from security through to catering. "It's a very strong company with very strong management," she said.
If shareholders approve the deal and it goes through, Veris will be a shell and will subsequently be delisted from the Dublin and London stock exchanges.
According to a Veris statement issued yesterday, the deal’s proceeds will be distributed to shareholders in January and June of next year.
