Bank of Ireland has renewed its sponsorship of the Irish Times Business Awards, which will be held this year on April 21st at the Round Room in the Mansion House in Dublin.
The awards are now in their fourth year, and will involve one of the winners of the Business Person of the Month award being chosen as Business Person of the Year for 2021. Candidates in the running include Suzanne Maloney of HidraMed Solutions, Aengus Kelly of AerCap, Gwen Layden of the Layden Group, Ger Rabbette of Uniphar and Donal Murphy of DCC.
The prestigious Business Person of the Year prize has previously been awarded to Róisín Hennerty of Ornua Foods (2020), Patrick and John Collison of Stripe (2019) and Glanbia's Siobhán Talbot (2018).
The awards celebrate excellence and outstanding achievement among business leaders in Ireland. Nikki Canavan, senior director of corporate banking at Bank of Ireland, said the bank was "delighted" to renew its sponsorship for this year. "The roll of honour for these awards serves as an impressive reminder of the talent, expertise and commitment of our business leaders, in both the multinational and the indigenous sectors."
Valuation
There will also be awards for Company of the Year, Deal of the Year and Local Enterprise of the Year, along with a Distinguished Leader in Business award.
The shortlist for Company of the Year comprises payments company Stripe, house builder Cairn Homes, healthcare group Uniphar, and life sciences group Malin.
The shortlist for Deal of the Year comprises Stripe, Applegreen, UDG Healthcare, and AerCap.
Stripe, which is led by the Irish brothers John and Patrick Collison, raised $600 million (€537 million) from investors last year, giving it a valuation of $95 billion (€85 billion), making it one of the most valuable private companies in the world.
Forecourt operator Applegreen was taken private in a deal valued at €718 million last year following a takeover by a consortium that included two of its founders, Bob Etchingham and Joe Barrett, and BlackRock infrastructure partners.
UDG was acquired after US private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice increased its offer to €3.1 billion, after an earlier bid met with opposition from some shareholders.
In November 2021, Dublin-based aircraft lessor AerCap completed its acquisition of the GE Capital Aviation Services business from General Electric. The deal involved $23 billion (€20 billion) in cash and 111.5 million of new AerCap shares, and made AerCap the biggest aircraft leasing company in the world.
The shortlist for Local Enterprise of the Year will be announced next week. The winners will be chosen by an independent panel of judges.
