NTR chairman Tom Roche and members of his immediate family are sitting on a profit of more than €400 million on their equity investment in the expanding utility group, new filings reveal. Arthur Beelsey, Senior Business Correspondent, reports.
The filings indicate that Roches are the prime beneficiaries of the diversification of NTR, which has moved away from road tolling to concentrate on waste, wind energy and biofuels. The latest annual accounts for their holding company, Dreamport Ltd, show that Mr Roche and his family invested a total of €61.11 million in NTR last September when it raised €170 million in a share placing.
Dreamport owns 35.5 per cent of NTR, the biggest single stake in the group. Its latest advance - funded by an intercompany loan from Conor Holdings, another family-owned firm - increased the value of the Roches' overall equity investment in NTR to €116.58 million.
Their shares are currently worth some €519.72 million on the grey market for stock in NTR, which had a market capitalisation last night of €1.46 billion. According to that valuation, the Roches would make a €403.14 million profit on their investment if they sold off their NTR stake.
The second-largest shareholder in NTR is investment group One51, which has a 25.6 per cent stake in the group.
The newly-filed Dreamport accounts show that the company received dividends of €3.08 million from NTR last year and paid out dividends of €4.67 million to Conor Holdings.
Conor Holdings did not pay any dividends to its ultimate parent, Woodford Capital, a company owned by Mr Roche, his wife Ann and their four children.
Mr Roche is a son of the late Tom Roche snr, the Roadstone founder who established the former National Toll Roads in 1978. His wife Ann is a daughter of the late PV Doyle, founder of the Jurys hotel empire. Both are members of JDH Acquisitions, the Doyle family vehicle that took the hotel business off the stock exchange in 2005 and made a profit of €950 million on the sale of five Dublin hotels and the Jurys Inn chain.
NTR is planning a "liquidity event" some time in 2009, although it is not clear whether it will take out a stock market listing or list, sell or demerge one or more of its subsidiaries.
The group owns wind energy firm Airtricity, which this month agreed to sell its US and Canadian operations to Eon in a $1.4 billion (€979.88 million) deal.
NTR also owns waste business Greenstar, which has embarked on a $125 million drive to expand in the US market.
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