An information technology entrepreneur, Mr Gilbert Little, who is based in Dalkey, Co Dublin, will receive $60 million (£45 million) worth of shares from the buy-out of a Belfast telecoms software company in which he held a 25 per cent stake.
Phone.com, the US Nasdaq-quoted Internet software company, will acquire most of APiON in a stock swap deal worth $239 million.
APiON, which also has an office in Drogheda, Co Louth, specialises in the provision of wireless application protocol (WAP) software, used to access Internet and advanced telephony services using new-generation mobile phones.
APiON was formed by members of the Dublin-based mobile phone software company, Aldiscon, four years ago. Mr Little, was the founder of Aldiscon and has already received £9.2 million (€11.7 million) from the buyout of that company by British company Logica, in 1997.
He is one of the APiON shareholders who will between them receive 1.3 million Phone.com shares, valued at about $239 million as of October 8th.
Among the other shareholders to benefit will be the managing director, Mr Denis Murphy, a former Irish Army officer who was asked to head APiON in 1995.
Enterprise Ireland owns about 8.5 per cent of the company, valued at some $20 million. Businessman Mr Vincent Daly, a director of Ericcson, has a similar stake. Other Aldiscon shareholders, who have stakes of 310 per cent, are Aldiscon managers Mr Larry Quinn, Mr Joe Cunningham, Mr Paul Tierney, and Mr Mehran Miramahdi. Another beneficiary is Mr David Megan, APiON's financial director, from Dundrum, Dublin. Mayfair venture capital firm holds a further 20 per cent.
APiON employs almost 200 people and expects to have a turnover of £6.5 million this year. Its value lies in the intellectual capital of its workforce who spend up to 20 per cent of their time on research and development activities.
WAP technology allows mobile operators to carry out such functions as using e-mail, booking cinema tickets, and money between bank accounts.
Phone.com said yesterday it had signed an agreement to acquire APiON's WAP products and related operations, involving 114 of APiON's employees including 11 in Drogheda.
APiON's non-WAP related services business is excluded from the acquisition. The services business will continue under a new name, Aepona, with about 80 employees while the APiON name will be replaced by Phone.com.
Among APiON's 10 GSM network clients are Sonera, a Finnish mobile phone company, after it won the contract over its Finnish rival, Nokia.
Mr Malcom Bird, Phone.com Europe's managing director, said APiON was adding leading European network operators to its own list of GSM customers which include Mannesmann Mobilfunk, Omni tel, Cegetel/SFR and Telstra.
"The combined companies have contractual relationships with 43 wireless network operators for either trials or commercial deployment, 31 of which are GSM operators," he said.
