Five KPMG partners, past and present, are set to earn a combined €60 million from the proposed sale of a west Cork technology company to JP Morgan, a Wall Street investment bank.
The accountants supported Global Shares in a series of funding rounds but would probably have invested no more than €2 million in total. They each put €100,000 into the company’s first fundraiser in 2007.
The five include Ron Bolger, a former managing partner; Gerard Flood, who led the firm’s corporate finance department; and Richard Whelan, a former audit partner. Current partners Eoghan Quigley, who is in charge of people services, and Michele Connolly, head of corporate finance, are also poised to receive windfalls.
Global Shares was set up by Maoiliosa O’Culacháin, who managed the Eircom employee share scheme set up in advance of the flotation of the former state phone company. After leaving Eircom he set up Global Shares with Carine Schneider, a businesswoman from California. Based in Clonakilty, Co Cork, the company administers the stock plans of multinationals including Saudi Aramco, the Saudi Arabian oil firm.
Richard Hayes, a former chairman of the company and the largest individual shareholder, last week revealed in a letter to investors that JP Morgan will pay “north of €5 per share” to acquire Global Shares. That will value the 73-year-old Cork businessman’s own equity at €37.5 million.
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Of the KPMG backers, the biggest beneficiary will be Whelan, earning at least €17 million, followed by Quigley (€14 million), Flood and Connolly (€10 million each) and Bolger (€7.5 million).
In a letter to shareholders, Hayes said that Whelan and Quigley had been “a constant source of advice and help to the company, whether it be from leading a much needed funding round when there was concern about paying wages the following month, or from pro bono tortuous dealings with the Revenue over EIIS [employment and investment incentive scheme] applications which continue to this day”.
He said investors would receive “a very substantial and very much deserved return” on investment, adding: “You backed the company at a time of very high risk, and thoroughly deserve the returns now.”
The sale, which will benefit about 400 shareholders, including staff, is due to complete in the first half of this year. Global Shares employs 275 people in Clonakilty and Cork city.
