Moves to take ILP private

What's going on at packaging tiddler ILP, the group which has had a disastrous time as a public company which first floated on the London stock market and now also has a listing in Dublin. The indications are that some corporate moves are afoot with non-executive director Justin Burke possibly using his privately-owned Alert Packaging group to take ILP private.

Last week, Alert went into the market and bought up 747,000 ILP shares to take its stake from 5.6 per cent to 7.5 per cent. This, Justin Burke told The Irish Times was to bring its stake in ILP to a level that was "about right" and that Alert had no plans to increase its stake.

Now, maybe Justin Burke believes that ILP is simply a good investment at its current bombed-out price of 27p sterling - an awful long way from the float price three years ago of 75p sterling. But people in the industry are not convinced and believe that Mr Burke - a brother of ILP's former managing director Paul Burke - may be planning to use Alert to take ILP private now that ILP seems to be back trading in the black.

Alert's recent buying of ILP shares should generate some interesting fraternal chats between the two Burke boys. Paul Burke - although he stepped down as ILP managing director - still has 29.5 per cent of the equity and clearly has to be brought on-side if his brother or anybody else wants to make a move for ILP.