Siteserv sale ‘was a good deal for the taxpayer’

The sale of Siteserv to a company owned by businessman Denis O'Brien in 2012 was a deal that was good for the taxpayer, the utility group's chief executive said on Friday.

Sean Corkery, who heads up the utility support services group, said he was frustrated about being continually questioned about the €45 million sale of the firm to Denis O'Brien's company Millington from IBRC, a deal that included a debt writeoff from the State bank of more than €100 million.

In an interview with RTÉ radio, Mr Corkery said the deal, which was subject to a Department of Finance review, was a risky move by Mr O'Brien and one that had been of benefit to the taxpayer.

His comments come after it was revealed on Thursday that Minister for Finance Michael Noonan had ordered the departmental review in the sale over concerns.

In a written reply this week to a parliamentary question about the deal submitted by Independent TD Catherine Murphy, Mr Noonan said the "concerns" included the fact that lawyers had acted for both the buyer and seller, that a payment was made to the shareholders of Siteserv who were also directors, and that the shareholders were also clients of the company's financial adviser.

Mr Corkery expressed annoyance at Ms Murphy’s questioning of the acquisition.

“I’m getting a little bit fed up of the constant questioning from Catherine Murphy in the sense that it’s the same questions and I think she knows what the answer is, which is that everything was completely above board.I’m trying to run a company. I’m the CEO and when statements are made that are untrue they affect customers, suppliers and employees,” he said.

Mr Corkery said it wasn’t unusual to see a legal firm representing both sides and that the decision to pay shareholders was necessary in order to persuade them to sell Siteserv.

"This company was doing very badly...it ran up a huge debt and accumulated losses and the IBRC discounted the company and put it up for sale. A lot of people looked at it and everybody was offered the same price and the same discount and the entrepreneur Denis O'Brien and Leslie Buckley came along and took the risk on it...and it was a risk."

“The best thing to do was to convince the shareholders to sell the company otherwise the taxpayer would have lost another €50 million and 1,600 jobs,” he said.

“We’ve invested over €50 million in the last three years and have plans to invest another €100 million over the next three years and we now have double the employment we had when we bought the company two years ago. That has to be good for the taxpayer. It was a good deal and the taxpayer came out the right side of it in my view” Mr Corkery added.

The Millington bid for Siteserv was the lowest bid received by IBRC during the tendering process. Mr Corkery said that one of the other unsuccesful bidders never made an offical bid for the company, came in too late to the process and had a number of conditions attached to their bid.

“You must remember that Siteserv was sold to the Denis O’Brien company with no conditions...in other words we didn’t even get the opportunity to do the due diligence. This was €50 million take it or leave it and take it off the parking lot,” he said.

In discussing Siteserv's winning of a contract to supply water meters across the State before the forming of its joint venture with GMC Sierra, Mr Corkery said that this was not unusual.

“You don’t go through the process of setting up a joint venture prior to getting a contract like that. The joint venture was specific to the contract,” he said.