Irishman to acquire team in Scottish Premier

Cork millionaire Mr Pearse Flynn is preparing to acquire Scottish Premier League soccer club Livingston from administration. Dominic Coyle reports

A consortium led by Mr Flynn is expected to be unveiled as the new owner of the Scottish League Cup holder this week.

Livingston was put into administration last February with debts of £7.5 million sterling after its banker, HBOS, withdrew support from owner and chairman Mr Dominic Keane and demanded repayment of a £3.5 million overdraft.

It is racing against time to find a backer. The Scottish Premier League has announced that any club in administration by the end of May will be docked 10 points at the start of the next season.

Dundee - currently in administration with debts of £20 million - and Livingston would almost certainly face relegation and further financial pressure if that happened. A third club, Motherwell, has recently emerged from administration after its owner forgave the bulk of its debt.

One Scottish football commentator said over the weekend that failure to find a backer by the May 31st deadline "would be the end" for Livingston.

Mr Flynn is understood to have visited the club and talked to both management and executives.

It is unclear how much Mr Flynn and his consortium will invest in the club. There is a possibility that HBOS would reinstate coverage of its overdraft, currently £3.5 million, under new owners but that would leave other debts of £4 million in addition to money required to fund the club as it pays existing staff and brings in new players.

A lifelong fan of Celtic, in which he has invested £1 million, Mr Flynn is understood to be determined that former Celtic legend Mr David Hay should stay on as manager should he invest in the club.

As it stands, the club will only have five players under contract for next season.

The Irishman first came to prominence when he masterminded the sale of Canadian telecoms group Newbridge Networks to French giant Alcatel for $7.1 billion in 2000.

Mr Flynn, who stayed with the company and ultimately became Alcatel's president of carrier networking, became a millionaire from the deal.

Early in 2001, he expressed an interest in buying the non-mobile elements of Eircom, but it came to nothing.

Mr Flynn went on to become the inaugural chief executive of Damovo, a telecoms group spun off from Ericsson. He opted to site the company's headquarters in Glasgow, having considered other locations, including Ireland.

Mr Flynn was one of a group of Irish investors who put £17 million into Celtic. He invested £1 million in August 2001. Other investors at the time included Mr Dermot Desmond, Jordan Formula 1 team-owner Mr Eddie Jordan, Mr Denis O'Brien, Celtic manager Mr Martin O'Neill and Elan Pharmaceuticals chief financial officer Mr Tom Lynch.

He was also understood to be among a group of Irish investors who acquired 49.9 per cent of the struggling Jordan Formula 1 team in October 2003 from private equity group Warburg Pincus.

Damovo became one of Jordan's sponsors, although the company has since pulled the plug on that deal, following the ousting of Mr Flynn after he failed in a £300 million management buyout bid.

Earlier this year, Mr Flynn returned to the telecoms market with the purchase of Callpoint, a small call-centre operator.

Interestingly, it too was put on the market after HBOS withdrew support and demanded repayment of its overdraft - in this case £700,000.