Cork building group O'Flynn Construction has acquired a 9.2 per cent stake in Blackrock International Land, the property firm spun out from fruit importers Fyffes last year.
Shares in Blackrock closed unchanged last night at 53 cent, implying a market capitalisation of more than €309 million on the group and a valuation of some €28.56 million on the O'Flynn stake. "This is simply an investment, no more," said O'Flynn's spokesman. Blackrock is understood to share that interpretation of O'Flynn's purchase of shares in the company.
The vendors of Blackrock shares are understood to include Marathon Asset Management, which had a 3.5 per cent stake in the business before selling down shares to O'Flynn.
Blackrock's current portfolio is worth more than €440 million. The company indicated earlier this month that it was on track to amass a portfolio worth more than €1 billion within five years.
Established in 1978, O'Flynn executed the transaction with a wholly-owed subsidiary called Rosecastle.
Controlled by the family of managing director Michael O'Flynn, the company developed a big business in Cork before opening offices in Dublin and setting up operations in London and Frankfurt. Well-known in business circles in Cork, Mr O'Flynn is acting chairman of the Cork University Foundation.
An annual return last October for holding company O'Flynn Construction Holdings shows that shares in the business are held by a British Virgin Islands entity called Colebridge International Ltd and by an Isle of Man company, Tyrone Unlimited.
The group includes numerous Irish-registered subsidiaries, several companies in Britain and two other firms in the British Virgin Islands, Stonebridge Global Ltd and OFCL Ltd.
The O'Flynn organisation opted for unlimited status in Ireland in 2005, so no recent financial figures are publicly available.
The most recent figures, for 2003, show that it had a turnover of €89.87 million that year and pretax profits of €23.77 million. Accumulated profits stood at €54.77 million at the beginning of 2004, the accounts show.
Present in each of the residential, commercial, retail and industrial sectors, the group is believed to have been a big beneficiary of the domestic construction boom. The Blackrock investment and its international expansion suggest an appetite for diversification.
