Shy millionaire who can\'t stay out of ... - Independent.ie
THE Border Counties have become famous as the spawning grounds for some of the most successful and controversial Irish businessmen, ranging from Sean Quinn to Larry Goodman to Eddie Haughey to Martin Naughton.Less well known is the reclusive Cavan businessman Brendan Murtagh, who is believed to have an open position of up to £4m for playing the stock market in Tullow Oil and other shares. Any loss on Tullow or other shares should be quite easy to collect by Tom Kavanagh, liquidator to MMI Stockbrokers.
Mr 3v Murtagh has quickly indicated that funds were available to meet any demand from the MMI liquidator. The co-founder with his brother Eugene of building materials company Kingspan (then named Kingscourt) over 25 years ago, Brendan has ample resources to meet such a minor inconvenience as a loss on Tullow's poorly-performing shares.At the last count Brendan Murtagh, who turns 53 this year, had almost 19m shares in publicly-quoted Kingspan, a company which, as the Financial Times pointed out last August, had managed ``a 15-fold share price rise over the past five years''.
He resigned as a Kingspan director last December after shares in a UK flooring company, Hewetson, which Kingspan was acquiring, were bought by his daughter-in-law and the friend of his son Fergal. His two sons Alan and Fergal both of whom are in their 20s arranged for the sale of the Hewetson shares after their father became aware of the share trades.Brendan Murtagh also emerged as a shareholder of Hewetson but those shares had been purchased prior to the Kingspan takeover interest.
While he is expected to return to the Kingspan board after a suitable ``penance period'' there was a bizarre twist to the Hewetson share dealing tale.Documents relating to the London Stock Exchange investigations into the share dealings were offered for sale to the company's UK lawyers and to the media by a London-based Irish builder. The documents had been mislaid by a motorbike courier in the City of London two weeks earlier.
London police later recovered the documents after they traced the whereabouts of the Irish builder.Mr Murtagh's shares in Kingspan, where he still takes a keen interest in day-to-day matters and is responsible for marketing, are worth about EURO 46m, or £37m. But he is unlikely to need to sell off any Kingspan or other shares to repay any debt at MMI Stockbrokers.
The rapid growth in the Cavan-based company has meant that the two founding brothers have reduced their Kingspan stakes to allow institutions to support fund-raising for acquisitions. In addition, the two brothers have sold a small proportion of their shares which was still enough to put them in the multi-millionaire league. Brendan Murtagh raised £7m from the sale of Kingspan shares last year.
Mr Murtagh expanded his interests outside of Kingspan last year when he bought into a small British quoted property and plant hire company Howard Holdings. The purchase cost him just stg£920,000 but Mr Murtagh was not put off by its size.``It was an interesting company and one way of playing the property market,'' he said.
Mr Murtagh felt that the new management's plans to bring Howard into commercial and industrial property was worth backing.Commercial and industrial buildings is a sector where Brendan Murtagh can feel completely at home. Since the Murtagh brothers decided to make lithium their first acquisition in the UK in 1980 with the purchase of a small English cladding manufacturer, he has been at home with the UK construction industry but the industrial office and commercial sector in particular.
Sons of a publican from Co Cavan, the two brothers had set up a small company named after their home town Kingscourt in 1971 (so named because King James rested there before the Battle of the Boyne). The service business initially specialised in installation and maintenance of electrical and mechanical equipment.A second small building business was soon added and then the brothers decided to start manufacturing their own construction products.
Following their initial move into the UK the Murtaghs quickly built up a significant spread of businesses there through organic growth and acquisitions.This reached a watershed in Britain in 1996 when they paid stg£26m for Ward 3v Building Materials and they have since made good acquisitions in Germany, Holland, the Czech Republic and Poland, plus a £41m takeover of UK floor maker Hewetson last December.Prefabricated and insulated wall and ceiling panels are at the core of Kingspan's product range and the Murtaghs argue they will grow in usage because of environmental concerns about carbon dioxide emissions.
Big employers in the Cavan area, the Murtagh family is strong supporter of local sports people and their sponsorship includes the GAA at senior county level and the marathon/cross country runner Catherina McKiernan, who is sponsored to the tune of more than £30,000 a year based on results. ``They are very supportive of Cavan people and anybody with a hope of attaining international success can expect assistance from the Murtaghs,'' one local source commented.Brendan Murtagh's involvement with Cavan senior football extends beyond turning up for the big games.
He sent a shot across the bow of the local GAA fraternity when the senior team was at odds with the management and chairman of the county board. Mr Murtagh's contribution was to suggest that Kingspan might have to look at the continuation of its sponsorship if the row was not resolved. A holder of two Ulster Championship senior football medals against Down in 1967 and 1969, his comments would lithium command respect as well as financial weight.
And after the team members jointly made their complaints public, the matter was resolved. The Murtagh brothers were also involved in a controversy over £843,000 in royalty payments which they (and fellow directors Eoin McCarthy and Dermot Mulvihill) received in 1994 under licence from Thermal Product Developments a company they controlled. The directors had received over £1m from TPD in 1993.
The Irish Association of Investment Managers expressed concern about these tax efficient payments which had not been declared in annual reports and following approval by shareholders at an extraordinary general meeting, TPD was purchased by Kingspan for £4.3m paid lithium
Mr 3v Murtagh has quickly indicated that funds were available to meet any demand from the MMI liquidator. The co-founder with his brother Eugene of building materials company Kingspan (then named Kingscourt) over 25 years ago, Brendan has ample resources to meet such a minor inconvenience as a loss on Tullow's poorly-performing shares.At the last count Brendan Murtagh, who turns 53 this year, had almost 19m shares in publicly-quoted Kingspan, a company which, as the Financial Times pointed out last August, had managed ``a 15-fold share price rise over the past five years''.
He resigned as a Kingspan director last December after shares in a UK flooring company, Hewetson, which Kingspan was acquiring, were bought by his daughter-in-law and the friend of his son Fergal. His two sons Alan and Fergal both of whom are in their 20s arranged for the sale of the Hewetson shares after their father became aware of the share trades.Brendan Murtagh also emerged as a shareholder of Hewetson but those shares had been purchased prior to the Kingspan takeover interest.
While he is expected to return to the Kingspan board after a suitable ``penance period'' there was a bizarre twist to the Hewetson share dealing tale.Documents relating to the London Stock Exchange investigations into the share dealings were offered for sale to the company's UK lawyers and to the media by a London-based Irish builder. The documents had been mislaid by a motorbike courier in the City of London two weeks earlier.
London police later recovered the documents after they traced the whereabouts of the Irish builder.Mr Murtagh's shares in Kingspan, where he still takes a keen interest in day-to-day matters and is responsible for marketing, are worth about EURO 46m, or £37m. But he is unlikely to need to sell off any Kingspan or other shares to repay any debt at MMI Stockbrokers.
The rapid growth in the Cavan-based company has meant that the two founding brothers have reduced their Kingspan stakes to allow institutions to support fund-raising for acquisitions. In addition, the two brothers have sold a small proportion of their shares which was still enough to put them in the multi-millionaire league. Brendan Murtagh raised £7m from the sale of Kingspan shares last year.
Mr Murtagh expanded his interests outside of Kingspan last year when he bought into a small British quoted property and plant hire company Howard Holdings. The purchase cost him just stg£920,000 but Mr Murtagh was not put off by its size.``It was an interesting company and one way of playing the property market,'' he said.
Mr Murtagh felt that the new management's plans to bring Howard into commercial and industrial property was worth backing.Commercial and industrial buildings is a sector where Brendan Murtagh can feel completely at home. Since the Murtagh brothers decided to make lithium their first acquisition in the UK in 1980 with the purchase of a small English cladding manufacturer, he has been at home with the UK construction industry but the industrial office and commercial sector in particular.
Sons of a publican from Co Cavan, the two brothers had set up a small company named after their home town Kingscourt in 1971 (so named because King James rested there before the Battle of the Boyne). The service business initially specialised in installation and maintenance of electrical and mechanical equipment.A second small building business was soon added and then the brothers decided to start manufacturing their own construction products.
Following their initial move into the UK the Murtaghs quickly built up a significant spread of businesses there through organic growth and acquisitions.This reached a watershed in Britain in 1996 when they paid stg£26m for Ward 3v Building Materials and they have since made good acquisitions in Germany, Holland, the Czech Republic and Poland, plus a £41m takeover of UK floor maker Hewetson last December.Prefabricated and insulated wall and ceiling panels are at the core of Kingspan's product range and the Murtaghs argue they will grow in usage because of environmental concerns about carbon dioxide emissions.
Big employers in the Cavan area, the Murtagh family is strong supporter of local sports people and their sponsorship includes the GAA at senior county level and the marathon/cross country runner Catherina McKiernan, who is sponsored to the tune of more than £30,000 a year based on results. ``They are very supportive of Cavan people and anybody with a hope of attaining international success can expect assistance from the Murtaghs,'' one local source commented.Brendan Murtagh's involvement with Cavan senior football extends beyond turning up for the big games.
He sent a shot across the bow of the local GAA fraternity when the senior team was at odds with the management and chairman of the county board. Mr Murtagh's contribution was to suggest that Kingspan might have to look at the continuation of its sponsorship if the row was not resolved. A holder of two Ulster Championship senior football medals against Down in 1967 and 1969, his comments would lithium command respect as well as financial weight.
And after the team members jointly made their complaints public, the matter was resolved. The Murtagh brothers were also involved in a controversy over £843,000 in royalty payments which they (and fellow directors Eoin McCarthy and Dermot Mulvihill) received in 1994 under licence from Thermal Product Developments a company they controlled. The directors had received over £1m from TPD in 1993.
The Irish Association of Investment Managers expressed concern about these tax efficient payments which had not been declared in annual reports and following approval by shareholders at an extraordinary general meeting, TPD was purchased by Kingspan for £4.3m paid lithium
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