Sean Corkery’s decision to retire as Datalex chief executive after four years is perhaps not unexpected, but on the face of it leaves a void at the top of the travel software company.
Corkery arrived in the top job as the company dealt with an accounting issue that led to the firm having to restate its 2018 earnings and being suspended from the Irish Stock Exchange for several months. There is little doubt that those issues could have been an existential threat to the company.
Corkery, who had originally joined the business as deputy chairman, stepped into the chief executive role and stabilised the company. It had several contract wins and was awarded more than €800,000 at arbitration in a dispute with Lufthansa.
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Under his leadership, Datalex pivoted from building expensive, bespoke IT systems for airlines to instead focusing on off-the-shelf ones that needed little customisation to plug them into airlines’ existing systems. If you are booking a flight with the likes of Aer Lingus, Jet Blue or EasyJet, among others, there is a good chance you are using a Datalex product in some way.
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The company is on a much more certain footing now than when Corkery took over.
Dermot Desmond firm
Still, he won’t formally leave until the end of the year, and in the interim will have to figure out how to refinance a high-interest loan facility provided by a company controlled by Dermot Desmond. The rate on that €10 million facility is set to increase to a whopping 18 per cent in October.
Datalex had been expected to launch a share sale to help refinance those loans, but with the stock price somewhat depressed, The Irish Times reported last month that the plan had been put on ice for now.
The company is likely to publish its half-year earnings in September. No doubt the funding issue will be on the tips of analyst and investor tongues at that time. Mr Corkery may be heading for the exit, but his work is definitely not completed yet.
