THE CORK-based Doyle shipping group yesterday sold its 12.5 per cent stake in Irish Continental Group (ICG) in a placement handled by NCB Stockbrokers.
Doyle sold 3.07 million shares at €15.75 each, roughly a 3 per cent discount to ICG’s closing price in Dublin on Wednesday.
This means the Doyle group has recorded a loss of about €19 million on its share trading in ICG over nearly four years.
But the company has earned about €12.4 million in dividends from ICG, including a distribution that will be made next month.
It is not clear why Doyle chose to sell the shares now.
A notice to the stock market about the share trading is expected today.
Doyle bought the ICG shares at €22 a piece when it was part of the Moonduster consortium that sought to acquire the ferry group.
Moonduster was led by Philip Lynch and the One51 investment group.
One51 owns 12.5 per cent of the business and is expected to retain this shareholding.
Moonduster sought to acquire the business in competition with a management bid led by ICG chief executive Eamonn Rothwell.
Neither side succeeded and a subsequent attempt to buy the ferry operator jointly did not meet with success as the financial crisis here made it difficult to raise the necessary finance.
It is understood that the Doyle shares were bought yesterday mostly by existing investors in ICG from the UK and the US.
The placement was oversubscribed.
ICG is believed to have purchased around 250,000 units of the Doyle stock, as part of an ongoing share buyback scheme.
ICG’s shares rose by just under 1 per cent yesterday to €16.395.
ICG last week said it made a loss of €1.2 million in the first 18 weeks of the year due to rising oil prices and a 6.5 per cent fall in passenger numbers.
It made a profit of €200,000 for the same period of 2010. Most of its profit was earned in the busier second half of the year.