Japanese firm rules out investment in Doherty

A Japanese company has ruled out the idea of making an investment in the struggling advertising firm Doherty Advertising.

Doherty, which is facing serious debts arising from the collapse of the Dublin Evening newspaper, has been attempting to attract investment from advertising agencies for several weeks now.

Its managing director, Mr Mark Beggs, said there was a possibility the Japanese advertising house Hakuhodo might make an equity injection, but these hopes appeared to be dashed yesterday.

Group Nexus/H Ltd, which is 50 per cent owned by Hakuhodo, contacted The Irish Times yesterday and said it was approached by Mr Beggs between six and nine months ago but turned down the opportunity of investing in Doherty. A shareholding investment was mentioned but the offer was rejected.

The group managing director of Group Nexus/H, Mr Ian Norman, said any investments by Hakuhodo would have to come through his company. "A proposal was made about six or nine months ago, but Ireland is not part of our plans right now. We are creating a European network but Ireland is not one of the countries in that network at this stage. So there is no possibility of an investment in any agency in Ireland," he said.

He said any claims about a possible investment would not be accurate. "We have signed a management co-operation agreement with Dohertys but that is as far as it goes," he added.

On Tuesday the Dublin advertising business, the Larkin Partnership, said it was not planning to make an investment in Doherty, after completing due diligence.

Mr Beggs is currently pursuing other parties about an investment, although these companies have not been named. Several media companies are owed money by Doherty and Larkin attempted to get agreement with them last week.

While the media companies agreed to write off some debt, other issues surfaced and Larkin pulled out of the deal. It is understood it was concerned about monies outstanding to Doherty and what impact that might have.

Mr Beggs told a creditors' meeting of the Dublin Evening newspaper last month that his company was owed almost €300,000.

Mr Beggs could not be contacted for comment last night.