Denis O’Brien’s trophy home to get Chinese embassy tenant

The multimillionaire telecoms entrepreneur Denis O’Brien is cooking up some deals with the Chinese government. Before anyone has an absolute canary over the prospect of the Chinese state getting its hands on telecoms infrastructure, I hear that the Dinster is only doing a property transaction.
Back in the day, Denis splashed out €7.1 million to buy a beautiful red-brick on Raglan Road. I went to a few fabulous parties there under previous ownership. It became the subject of a wrangle that he had with the Revenue Commissioners over a €57 million capital gains bill from the sale of Esat Telecom a few years earlier.
The case hinged on whether the house was habitable and could be used as his residence, or whether it was just an investment property owned by his company, Partenay. The High Court ruled in Denis’s favour. Now I’m told that Partenay is on the cusp of renting it to the Chinese embassy.
The dealmaker to the stars Damien “Daimo” O’Donohoe has taken a slice of the new ticketing platform Seat Unique, which has just raised about €17 million from new investors.
The company, which sells premium and VIP packages to events such as the Oasis comeback tour next year, has capitalised on the growing demand for high-end “experiences” like exclusive concerts and shows.
I believe that Nickleby Capital led the funding round with Ben Stokes, the England cricket captain, and Jessica Ennis-Hill, the Olympic gold medal-winning heptathlete, already backers of the UK firm.
O’Donohoe set up the Ikon talent management business, which numbers the football legend Damien Duff and former rugby star Brian O’Driscoll among its team. The jet-setting O’Donohoe expanded into putting together deals for high-rollers, including the investment into the former Premier League club Burnley by JJ and Kealia Watt, the US sports power couple.
Daimo has joined the advisory board of Seat Unique, which also includes the former NatWest boss Alison Rose.
Allan Beechinor and Neeve Parker are getting ready to come out of stealth with their new AI-powered data governance start-up. The husband-and-wife team were behind the ill-fated but wildly innovative Altada, which raised €11.5 million from investors to change how data was marshalled.
At one stage the Cork company was hyped to such an extent that it was touted as Ireland’s next unicorn — with a proposed valuation of more than $1 billion. It didn’t happen. The company collapsed into liquidation before the rump was bought up by the tech entrepreneur Eoin Goulding. The alleged spending on private jets probably didn’t help.
Beechinor and Parker have been working with a venture called EmergeGen to build a whole new data management tool loaded with a blob of AI. I hear that EmergeGen is out looking for staff too ahead of some mega product launches. Perhaps those unicorn hopes might be getting dusted down again.
It is a testament to Conor O’Kelly’s general calmness and ability to get stuff done that we’ve largely forgotten about Ireland’s national debt pile. Gross debt stood at €223 billion at the end of last year, down €13 billion from the pandemic peak.
O’Kelly had been the head of NCB Stockbrokers before seemingly taking a wrong turn and ending up as the head of the National Treasury Management Agency in 2015 on a five-year deal. It was later extended for another two and a half years. But there are decent yo-yos to be had running the agency — with O’Kelly being paid miles more than other civil servants.
Managing the national debt and selling bonds is a fairly critical bit of the economy. He earned as much as €571,000 one year, although it fell sharply. O’Kelly left the public sector in 2022 and has kept the head down. Difficult as he is about 7ft tall.
I hear that he’s working with Conor and Kevin Kenny’s Clancourt property empire. The firm, which was set up by the legendary developer Charlie Kenny, built the vast bulk of the offices around Harcourt Terrace and Hatch Street in the heart of Dublin’s central business district.
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Michael Cawley, the former Ryanair No 2, has been guiding the family but it now looks as if O’Kelly will be the independent voice of reason.
Bundee Aki, the rampaging Ireland rugby centre and human wrecking ball, is really fantastic at splattering Springboks or callow English defenders who get in his way. His sensitive side is not something that most of us are immediately aware of. But Bundee has hooked up with former Connacht team-mates Jarrad Butler and Niyi Adeolokun in a new skincare venture called Sportskn.
I gather that Bundee and Adeolokun both have about 13 per cent of the new start-up. Bundee has lashed in a bit of cash too.
Sportskn has developed a line of skin-recovery gels and shower products, which are made from all kinds of good stuff like amino acids. Primarily a new direct-to-consumer online brand, it is also available in certain Intersport Elverys, Horans and McCabes Pharmacy outlets.
It makes a pile of sense to leverage off Bundee’s profile and I’d expect to see quite a lot of him covered in suds in coming months. Steady on!
I hear that Dublin’s newest five-star hotel is quietly sprouting up. The luxury inn’s development is somewhat under the radar because it is being built out at the airport.
Arora Hotels is behind the long-awaited Terminal 2 hotel, which got planning permission in January 2022. The pandemic shifted the deadlines a tad and, all going well, the 410-bedroom hotel — which will be as tall as the terminal itself — should open by September next year.
Surinder Arora, the founder of the hotel group, is a former insurance salesman whose first venture into hospitality was a bed-and-breakfast for BA cabin crew at Heathrow. He is now one of Britain’s leading hoteliers and the proud owner of the Luton Hoo estate in Buckinghamshire, which is reportedly vying with Denis O’Brien’s Camiral to host the 2031 Ryder Cup.
There’s plenty of consolidation and deal activity in the domestic food and drink sector. In recent months, Brian Lee’s Freshly Chopped healthy salad chain was bought by the private equity group KnightBridge while C&C sold its Tipperary Water brand and a pile of fizzy drinks to Keith O Haire’s Imbibe Drinks. I believe that the sausage space is bracing itself for tie-up.
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While the likes of Denny and the supermarket own-brands dominate the market, the smaller “craft” makers are mopping up share. I hear that Loughnanes, Daire and Eoin Loughnane’s Galway food company, is having a nibble at Mervin and Monica Hodgin’s Cork-based Hodgins Sausages, bulked up by a €3.5 million loan from Bank of Ireland. These sausage makers are on a roll.