FINANCIER Mr Dermot Desmond's International Investment and Underwriting (IIU) has continued its stakebuilding in the ailing engineering group Unidare and now controls just over 13 per cent of the shares.
IIU has informed the Stock Exchange that it recently bought another 100,000 Unidare shares to bring its stake from 12.6 per cent to 13.1 per cent. The shares were acquired on October 30th when Unidare traded at 170p and 175p.
This continued buying of Unidare by IIU comes despite a dismal performance by the company in recent years and a profits warning two months ago.
Analysts in Dublin believe that Mr Desmond and IIU are investing in Unidare on the basis that the share price can hardly move much lower and that Unidare is a reasonable recovery bet.
In adopting this policy, IIU has gone against the conventional wisdom in the Dublin market where most institutions are sellers Unidare shares. Most of IIU's 2.6 million Unidare shares were bought at prices well above the current level, so the investment group is currently sitting on a substantial paper loss on its investment.
Unidare is not the only poor performer in which IIU has taken a stake. The group has also built up a 6.5 per cent stake in agribusiness group Golden Vale, 3.5 per cent in engineering group Barlo and 3.3 per cent in engineering/shipping group Jones.
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