Newcourt founder-directors consider bid for company

Three founder-directors of Newcourt are considering making an offer for the company.

The announcement sent shares in the Irish security, recruitment and aviation services group surging up 20 per cent at €0.24 on the Dublin market.

In a statement Ted O'Neill chief executive; Phil Sykes non-executive director and Hugh O’Neill executive directive, said they had received the board’s permission to explore getting third-party equity and debt funding.

They stressed that in the current market there was no certainty the necessary funding would be available.

The directors said any offer price will reflect the "challenging trading environment" and added there seemed to be little appetite among investors for smaller quoted stocks.

Any benefits normally associated with a listing, such as easier access to capital, the use of shares for consideration for acquisitions "are no longer available to the company", the company said, leaving it with the costs associated with listing but none of the benefits.

Newcourt said it requires significant equity and debt funding to complete its pipeline of student accommodation projects.

Last month the company reported a 34 per cent rise in revenues for the first six months to €22.4 million but said the strength of the euro against sterling had hurt profits.

The company floated in October 2005 at a price of €0.82 and its share price rose to a high of €1.82 in January 2007 but has since declined to close yesterday at €0.20. Over the last 12 months the share price has fallen over 83 per cent. At 12.10pm today the shares were trading at €0.24, a rise of 20 per cent.

According to data from Bloomberg at the current share price the company has a market cap of around €22.2 million.