Little people are the losers in Dunloe war

Dunloe Ewart's latest attempt to restructure its operations have been scuppered by dissident shareholders. The question is, what happens next?

Having gone to court to win back voting rights on his shares following his latest clash with the company in which he holds a 28.5 per cent shareholding, Zoe Developments' Liam Carroll proceeded to vote those shares against proposals to buy out British Land's 50 per cent interest in a major development in south Dublin.

Mr Carroll has consistently voted against the company's plans since he bought into the property group when chairman Mr Noel Smyth was trying to take it private in 2000. This time, he was joined by developer Phil Monahan, who owns about 7 per cent of the stock, and Dermot Desmond, whose holding is around 2 per cent.

However, until very recently, there has been no communication between Mr Carroll and the company. And those recent efforts to persuade either Mr Carroll or Mr Smyth to sell their shareholdings have come to naught. The latest confrontation is likely to result in a freeze on development at one of the group's two landmark sites.

Losing out in all this are British Land and almost 4,000 long-suffering smaller shareholders.

The former now has a landbank that is lying idle, albeit one that may well appreciate in value. The plight of the balance of the company's shareholders does not have even that silver lining. They are sitting on an investment that is worth considerably less than the 51 cents a share they were offered by Mr Smyth in his attempt to bring the company private.

With the company selling assets and an increasingly personal confrontation between the two largest shareholders effectively blocking attempts to move the company forward, one has to wonder just where the best interests of the company and its shareholders rank in the minds of the protagonists.