The Irish Takeover Panel has instructed property developer Sean Dunne to dispose of some of his Jurys Doyle shares as he has breached Rule 4 of its Substantial Acquisition Rules. Mr Dunne currently holds 18.23% of the hotel group after buying a large number of shares last month.
The Panel has directed Mr Dunne to dispose - to parties unconnected with him - enough Jurys Doyle shares to reduce his total shareholding in the company to below 15%.
On August 12 the property developer, though his company DTC Construction Services, purchased 2,121,668 million shares in the hotel group, representing about 3.36% of the issued share capital of the group.
Then on August 23 and 24, he acquired a further 9,396,668 shares which increased his stake in the chain to about 18.23%. The shares were acquired in three separate tranches of 6,494,381 million, 2,752,287 million and 100,000 shares.
Rule 4 (a) of the Irish Takeover Panel Act 1997, Substantial Acquisition Rules, prohibits any person - subject to certain exceptions set out in Rule 5 - from making a substantial acquisition of securities. The Panel says that the shares did not fall within any of the Rule 5 exceptions.
The rule states that a person can not acquire 10% of more of the total voting rights in a company in any seven day period if such purchases when aggregated with the shares already held by that person would result in that person holding 15% or more but less than 30% of the total voting rights of the company.
The Panel has ruled that the purchase of 2,752,287 and 100,000 Jurys Doyle shares constituted a breach of Rule 4.
In July, the Board of Jurys Doyle said it had agreed a deal to sell the site of its Jurys Ballsbridge and The Towers hotels in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 to Padholme, a company controlled by Sean Dunne for €260m.
But it emerged last week that Dunne will not be allowed to vote at this month's EGM which has been convened to approve the sale of two of its hotel sites to him.
Shares in the hotel group closed down ten cent to €17.75 in Dublin.
