{"id":229508,"date":"2026-01-06T01:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T01:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/229508\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T01:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T01:34:11","slug":"ferry-boss-eamonn-rothwell-lifts-stake-in-irish-continental","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/229508\/","title":{"rendered":"Ferry boss Eamonn Rothwell lifts stake in Irish Continental"},"content":{"rendered":"

New filings with the stock exchange show that he has lifted his holding in the company, which owns brands including Irish Ferries, to 21.65pc from slightly over 20pc.<\/p>\n

He controls the stake directly and through his Rokeby Investments vehicle. Rokeby Investments is an Ireland-based company whose directors are Mr Rothwell and his wife, Clodagh Moreland.<\/p>\n

The filing shows that he increased his holding on January 2.<\/p>\n

His stake in the group is currently valued at \u20ac196m based on Irish Continental\u2019s \u20ac905m market capitalisation.<\/p>\n

Mr Rothwell (70) has gradually increased his holding in the company over more than a decade.<\/p>\n

\"Eamonn<\/p>\n

Eamonn Rothwell has been CEO of Irish Continental Group since 1992<\/p>\n

In 2011, the former stockbroker owned almost 16pc of the group.<\/p>\n

At that time, he said he had no intentions of launching a fresh takeover bid for the ferry company, having made efforts to do so between 2007 and 2009.<\/p>\n

The first offer made by Mr Rothwell and management back then was trumped by a \u20ac561m offer from Moonduster, a consortium of what was then the Philip Lynch-led One51 investment group and Cork-based Doyle Shipping.<\/p>\n

That lapsed and Moonduster and Mr Rothwell joined forces in late 2008 to table a fresh offer for the ferry group, but never got around to actually making an offer to shareholders.<\/p>\n

The financial impact of this is a \u20ac10.4m increase in the value of the listed investments<\/p>\n

Accounts filed for Rokeby Investments last week show that at the end of 2024 it had investments valued at \u20ac103.6m.<\/p>\n

During 2024, the company purchased almost 1.2 million additional shares in Irish Continental at \u20ac5.40 each for a total consideration of just under \u20ac6.5m.<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing the financial year end, the share price of the listed investment increased to \u20ac5.70 per share at September 11, 2025,\u201d the accounts said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe financial impact of this for the company is a \u20ac10.4m increase in the value of the listed investments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe financial statements have not been adjusted for the increase in the share price.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shares in Irish Continental are currently trading at \u20ac6.06 and have climbed 15.6pc in the past year.<\/p>\n

In the six months to the end of June last year, Irish Continental posted revenue of \u20ac310m and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of \u20ac55m.<\/p>\n

The figures were 8.5pc and 10.5pc higher respectively year-on-year. Its operating profit was up 41pc, at \u20ac24.6m.<\/p>\n

The group also owns the Eucon container and terminal business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New filings with the stock exchange show that he has lifted his holding in the company, which owns…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,10099],"class_list":["post-229508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-john-mulligan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}