New investors

Who are they?

FAIRFAX FINANCIAL HOLDINGS

The Canadian financial services group is leading the investors who negotiated the deal with the Government to buy 34.9 per cent of Bank of Ireland.

The company is valued at about €11 billion on the Toronto stock exchange. Founded by India-born investor Prem Watsa, the Toronto-based company’s main business is insurance and reinsurance but the group is also an investor in major North American companies such as US bank Wells Fargo, Kraft Foods and computer maker Dell.

Fairfax has operated a reinsurance subsidiary in Dublin since 1990.

WL ROSS

Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross runs New York firm WL Ross, a leading turnaround firm that invests in distressed businesses. He was a member of the Irish-led Cardinal consortium that tried to buy building society EBS earlier this year after more than a year of negotiations.

He is one of the world’s biggest owners of rail-freight cars and invested in the US steel industry when the sector was struggling.

He was part of the consortium that bought Florida’s Bank United, which collapsed during the 2008 US subprime mortgage crisis. The bank was acquired for $900 million in May 2009 and was valued at $2.3 billion earlier this year.

FIDELITY INVESTMENTS

One of the largest US fund managers, Boston- based Fidelity Investments has about $1.5 trillion of assets under management. Some 49 per cent of the company is owned by the family of long- serving chief executive Edward “Ned” Johnson, whose father set up the business in 1949. Fidelity made an operating profit of $2.94 billion in 2010.

Fidelity is one of the largest investors in British broadcaster BSkyB. The company has invested in Allied Irish Banks in the past.

It employs about 240 staff in Galway and Dublin since setting up an Irish office in 1996. In February, it said it would create a further 100 jobs over three years.

CAPITAL RESEARCH (part of Capital Group)

One of the biggest stock investors in the world, the Los Angeles-based Capital Group was founded in 1931 and manages $1,250 billion in assets and $250 billion for institutions, including pension funds and government agencies. The company does not advertise its investments but sells funds to interested parties through advisers.

The company is a global investment group and its investments include stakes in the Italian defence and aeronautics group, Finmeccanica, Japanese electronics group NEC and Lions Gate Entertainment, the company behind TV drama Mad Men and films including The Expendables and Kick-Ass.

KENNEDY WILSON

The Beverly Hills-based property company was purchased by businessman William McMorrow in 1988. He made the initial approach to Fairfax on the Bank of Ireland deal several weeks ago. He began buying property assets from distressed Japanese banks in 1993 after the collapse of the country’s economy.

In June, the company bought a business from Bank of Ireland that manages €1.6 billion worth of investment property for clients. Kennedy Wilson is valued at $482 million on the New York Stock Exchange and is expanding its European business through offices in London and Dublin.