Paul Coulson's investment vehicle, Yeoman, has cleared a profit of almost €35 million after the sale of waste management group Sterile Technologies.
Yeoman invested €5.5 million in the Dublin-based company in 1999, and has received €40 million for the 41.4 per cent stake it holds under the terms of a deal announced yesterday. Mr Coulson, a serial entrepreneur, controls the investment vehicle.
Sterile Technologies, which specialises in medical waste management, was bought by US firm Stericycle for €110 million including €14 million in debt.
Yeoman shares the proceeds of the sale with Des Rogers, who founded Sterile Technologies in 1996. Mr Rogers and his family have also received €40 million for a 41.4 per cent position in the firm.
Sterile's current chief executive, Niall Wall, was due almost €9 million under the deal, while another shareholder, Bill Blyde, received close to €8 million. Mr Blyde became involved with the company in 2003 when Sterile Technologies acquired his company, BFH, which was then the third-largest healthcare waste management company in the UK.
Sterile Technologies is the largest healthcare waste management company in the Republic and the UK, with revenues of roughly €45 million last year. Annual profits at the firm are estimated at about €10 million.
Yesterday's sale stemmed from last autumn, when Sterile Technologies received a number of unsolicited approaches from potential buyers. It is thought one of these approaches took the form of a management buyout.
The firm's shareholders then decided to conduct a formal sale process and appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers to find a buyer. This culminated in Stericycle, a quoted US leader in the sector, getting involved. Sterile Technologies has grown fairly dramatically since its inception, having first been awarded the contract to handle healthcare waste for publicly-funded hospitals in Ireland in 1998. In 2003, a year after Mr Coulson became chairman of the company, this contract was renewed for 10 years.
Following the acquisition of BFH in 2003, Sterile Technologies bought another UK firm, Eurocare Environmental Services, in early 2004.
Sterile Technologies operates from 17 sites throughout the UK and the Republic and employs more than 330 people. Stericycle said the deal would add about $46 million (€39 million) to its revenues this year.
