There was some good news for Datalex last week when it announced two of its big shareholders, Pageant, the financial firm founded by veteran investor Nick Furlong, and Sean O’Driscoll, the former chief executive of Glen Dimplex, had boosted their stakes in the company.
Pageant pushed its stake from 9.3 million shares to just over 10.9 million, or 8.25 per cent, on top of which Furlong personally holds four million shares.
At the same time, O’Driscoll took himself from 4.3 million shares to about seven million, leaving him with 5.31 per cent of the company.
Combined, Pageant and Furlong’s stake is worth about €8 million, while O’Driscoll’s is worth about €3.5 million, with Datalex shares trading between 52 and 55 cent for most of the last week.
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It’s not the only good news the company has had lately, with a recent spate of announcements on contracts it has won with a number of airlines, including Air Macau, EasyJet and, most recently, Aer Lingus.
In truth, the company needed some good news. One of the first tasks of new chief executive Jonathan Rockett was to announce it had lost a contract with Virgin Australia. While that was not Datalex’s fault – Virgin Australia had decided to terminate a plan to overhaul its retail offering, a decision that affected a number of other companies – it nonetheless hit the company’s share price, which dropped in the aftermath.
But Rockett will surely be hoping the enhanced shareholdings by seasoned investors such as Furlong and O’Driscoll will be read as an indication they see some upside for Datalex in the near future.
That is especially so given the overhang of Datalex’s relationship with its biggest shareholder, Dermot Desmond’s investment vehicle IIU, which holds more than 40 per cent of the company’s shares and a hefty chunk of its debt, too. In December, with its debt to Desmond standing at about €10 million, Datalex announced it had stuck a further credit facility with him in the amount of €5 million more.
To bring that debt to more manageable levels, the company is likely to have to raise some equity in the near future, so it will be glad to see there’s some appetite for Datalex shares in the market.
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