Three founder members of catering equipment company Servequip are to share €15 million (£11.8 million) following the sale of the company.

Mr John Dunne, Mr John Bow and Mr Jim Malone will also remain in the business in their current roles of managing director, sales director and operations director respectively. The company was set up in 1988 by Mr Malone, who was joined in 1989 by Mr Dunne and Mr Bow.

"It was time to map out the next five years and we decided to go to the market to see if anybody was interested," said Mr Dunne.

"At any stage in a company's development, you decide whether you're going to invest more money in it, look for new markets or do you want to bring in somebody new with more ideas, more energy and better access to finance."

Servequip has been bought by Mr Jarlath Quinn and Mr Eamon McKey for a sum believed to be in the region of €15 million. The deal was funded through Bank of Ireland.

Mr Dunne and Mr Malone, who each had shareholdings of 40 per cent, could benefit to the tune of €6 million each, while Mr Bow could receive up to €3 million for his 20 per cent stake.

Servequip, which employs 50 people in Cherry Orchard industrial estate in west Dublin, is mainly engaged in the design, manufacture, importation and installation of catering systems. It also manufacturers customised counters and a range of sinks, tables, servery units and extraction canopies.

The company, which has turnover of around €15 million, supplies catering food systems to the industrial, institutional, hospital, restaurant, fast food and retail markets.

"We plan to capitalise on its success by further developing the business both within Ireland and in the UK," said Mr Quinn.

While he said there were future growth opportunities in the Republic, Mr Quinn said Servequip would concentrate on expanding its share of the Northern Irish market over the next six months.

The company has a 25 per cent market share on an all-Ireland basis, he said. However, the bulk of this business was based in the Republic, where he said the group had a market share of 30 to 35 per cent.

The company would also target the market in Britain in the coming year, he said.

Mr Quinn was previously a director of corporate finance with PricewaterhouseCoopers and has also worked with the AIB Group in Dublin.

Mr McKey was previously a director with KPMG where he dealt with business development and financial management in the manufacturing, distribution and contracting sectors.