At some stage in the near future, Sir Anthony O'Reilly is going to have to pony up some money as his contribution to Valentia's #2.9-billion takeover of Eircom, so maybe it's not altogether surprising that the Indo chairman is stocking up on some cash.
We haven't been told yet exactly what stake Sir Anthony has in Valentia, but some reports have put it as high as 4 per cent. This would suggest, unless he is getting some sort of carried interest to reflect his position as the Irish face of a group of American venture capitalists, he will have to put up some serious money.
It was interesting to see that Sir Anthony took his entire five-cents-a-share final dividend this year from Independent in cash - a handy #7 million - instead of shares under Indo's scrip dividend scheme. In fact, most of the Indo directors decided that cash was preferable to Indo shares when it came to the dividend. Gerry McGuinness pocketed #334,000 in cash dividends and Liam Healy almost #107,000.
Two scions of Sir Anthony, Tony Jnr and Gavin, did take shares for their dividend, but the third of the triplets, Cameron, opted for the cash.
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