Just under 99 per cent of Siteserv shareholders today voted to accept the Denis O’Brien-backed €45 million bid for the construction and utility services company.
Mr O'Brien's Isle of Man-based Millington agreed to pay €45.54 million for publicly-quoted Siteserv in mid-March.
The deal had to get shareholder approval at a meeting in Dublin this morning at which a formal poll was called following a debate over claims that the company could have been sold for a better price.
Under the deal's terms, shareholders will get €5 million while the State-owned Irish Banking Resolution Corporation (formerly Anglo Irish) will get €40 million in settlement of a €150 million debt due to it from Siteserv. This means the bank is taking a 70 per cent-plus haircut.
The poll concluded shortly before noon, and counting confirmed that 98.87 per cent of shareholders voted in favour of the Millington offer, while just 0.13 per cent opposed it, the remaining 1 per cent was witheld.
Siteserv confirmed at the meeting that it received an indicative, non-binding proposal from French group, Altrad to purchase its businesses for €60 million.
The bid was subject to due diligence, non-binding, governed by French law and on an exclusivity period of eight weeks.
The board said that it was its considered view that there was no certainty of a legally-binding offer at a price and under conditions that could be recommended to shareholders, and as a result, would maintain its recommendation of the Millington offer.
Altrad said this week that it had made a number of informal approaches to Siteserv but had been told that the Irish company was not for sale.
Chief executive, Brian Harvey, said that he received a phone call in January and an e-mail in March from Ray Neilson, an executive with Altrad subsidiary, Belle Group.
However, he stressed that he never discussed whether the company was for sale or not. "It would never have been appropriate for me to comment," he told the meeting.
Siteserv employs 2,300 people, about 900 of whom work in the Republic.
