Unidare is on schedule to distribute €53 million in proceeds from the sale of its US businesses to shareholders by the end of February after they approved the deal yesterday.

The engineering group is in the process of selling its businesses and winding up.

Yesterday it held an extraordinary general meeting (egm) to get shareholders' approval for the sale of its US wholesale business, ORS Nasco, to Brazos Private Equity Partners for €69 million.

The company will distribute €53 million to shareholders, including financier Dermot Desmond, who holds 26.6 per cent of Unidare. This holding will entitle him to around €13 million of the proceeds.

After getting shareholders' approval, Unidare will have to go to the High Court to get approval for the capital reduction and distribution.

It is likely to get a preliminary hearing on this in late January, with a full hearing on February 5th, 2006.

It will then have to register the capital change with the Companies' Registration Office. This means that it will complete the distribution to shareholders later that month.

Unidare's board proposed six resolutions at yesterday's meeting. Finance director Kevin Gallen said yesterday that shareholders voted to pass all six, and that there was 100 per cent support for the motions relating specifically to the sale and disposal of proceeds.

The group is also negotiating the sale of its UK business, Eland, to that company's management.

Recently it announced that it had entered talks with Codetrade Ltd, a company formed by Eland's executives, to sell the business for approximately €5.9 million.

Eland distributes electrical cables. In the year ended September 30th, it made pretax profits of €1 million on a €22.9 million turnover. It had net assets of €4.8 million on that date. This deal will also require the approval of Unidare's shareholders.

The proceeds of the Eland sale will also be distributed to shareholders. Following that, Unidare will be de-listed from the Dublin Stock Exchange and finally wound up.

The group is one of the oldest publicly-listed companies in the Republic.