Property developer Sean Dunne's stake in Jurys Doyle Hotel Group now stands at more than 21 per cent while Mr Liam Carroll controls 8.3 per cent of the company.
In a statement to the Irish Stock Exchange yesterday, Mr Dunne confirmed the net purchase on Friday of more than four million shares, at a cost of nearly €73 million, lifting his stake to 21.3 per cent.
Because he controls more than 20 per cent of the company, Mr Dunne is now in a position to block any compulsory purchase of his shares in the event of a takeover.
Meanwhile, companies controlled by Mr Liam Caroll purchased €11 million worth of Jurys shares on Friday, raising his stake in the hotel group to 8.3 per cent from 7.4 per cent. Mr Carroll could not be reached for comment yesterday on the reasons behind his stake building.
However, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) condemned the "speculator feeding frenzy" around Jurys and hit out at what it called "the Americanisation of the economy, where the bottom line is king and the social consequences matter not a whit".
"Throughout this whole slightly sordid episode, played like a soap opera in the media, people seem to have lost sight of the 800 jobs that will be sacrificed to satisfy speculative greed," ICTU general secretary David Begg said.
"These 800 permanent and pensionable jobs will be lost forever, not because of outsourcing, not because of competition from low-wage economies, but because already wealthy speculators want to make a quick buck."
ICTU called on the planning and local authorities to step in and ensure that development in Dublin and the rest of the country was no longer driven by speculators.
"Change the zoning, insist that amenities cannot be transformed into luxury homes, insist that the social consequences of any development are at least equal to the financial considerations," Mr Begg said. "They must put a stop to this madness."
The uncertainty over the future ownership of Ireland's largest hotel group has also overshadowed the release today of the group's first half results.
The value attaching to the company's property, particularly its seven-acre site in Ballsbridge, has been the main factor driving the Jurys share price of late rather than the company's underlying trading performance.
While the company's established inns continue to perform well and its hotels in London and Washington DC are benefiting from healthy market conditions, Jurys four-star hotels in Dublin have had a challenging time.
Nonetheless, the company, which last year posted a 12 per cent fall in first-half pretax profit to €22 million, has said that it expects to deliver underlying growth in both turnover and profit this year, despite the disruption caused by the takeover talk.
Goodbody expects it to report a first-half operating profit of €37.3 million, up from €31.8 million in the same period last year. Shares in Jurys closed unchanged last night at €18.00.
