MCD, the concert promoter owned by Mr Denis Desmond, has taken a 16 per cent share in the Mean Fiddler chain of pubs.
Mr Vince Power who owns the chain sold 10 million of his shares to MCD for £4.23 million sterling, cutting his own stake by around one-third to 35 per cent.
Mr Desmond will join the board of Mean Fiddler as soon as formalities are completed. "This is tremendous news for both MCD and Mean Fiddler as we will be able to scale our businesses to take advantage of the significant opportunities in the live music market," Mr Desmond said in a statement this morning.
Mr Desmond has stakes in other well-known British venues such as Shepherds Bush Empire and Brixton Academy as well as the V festivals, while Mean Fiddler owns the Astoria, Forum and Reading, Leeds and Glastonbury festivals.
Waterford-born Mr Power said he had thought "long and hard" about giving up majority control of Mean Fiddler but said that the deal with MCD was "unquestionably the right one for the future" of the company.