Johnny Hehir, the supercar-driving insurance boss, will need to look in the rear-view mirror. I hear that he, or rather his company, CFM, is being pursued again.
Earlier this year the private equity-backed insurer Chill was thought to be looking to buy CFM, which operates successful online brands such as Insuremyvan.ie and Coverinaclick. My spies tell me that AA Ireland also ran the numbers on the Terenure-based business. Now I believe that the US broker AssuredPartners has been sniffing about.
AssuredPartners has bought four insurance businesses here in the past two years, including Gallivan Murphy Insurance Brokers, which was said to have been worth about €100 million.
CFM serves more than 100,000 customers in Ireland through a variety of online brands ranging from truck and van insurance to taxis and holiday cover. The business, which was valued at about €100 million this year, is owned by Hehir and fellow director Joyce Kelly.
There has been an extraordinary amount of consolidation in the Irish insurance market in recent years, and CFM may well be a yummy snack for a bigger player.
Former Davy chief in a hairy situation
The Hairy Lemon pub has a good spot on the corner of Stephen Street in Dublin
ALAMY
The former Davy boss Tony Garry is propping up a bar — financially, that is. Garry ran the country’s biggest stockbroking firm for almost two decades before stepping down as chief executive in 2015. The stockbroker was sold to Bank of Ireland for more than €440 million in 2021, with Garry one of the big beneficiaries.
I see that he has put some money — by way of a loan — into the Hairy Lemon pub, which occupies a plum spot on the corner of Stephen Street in Dublin. The pub has been subject to an ownership wrangle between the well-known publican Paul Clinton and another publican, Paul Hanahoe.
The erudite Garry, who is also listed as a shareholder in the parent company of the pub, made a career out of smoothing over wrinkles and getting business done.
Merchant banker makes capital move
I believe the merchant banker Mark Gallagher’s fabulous Ailesbury Road gaff made €10 million when it sold just over a month ago. It’ll be one of the top residential sales of the year.
The Irishman, who chairs the London-based merchant bank Umbra Capital, had lived in the house for almost a decade. It sold for €4.41 million when it was last on the market, in 2014 — also making the list for one of the top ten house price sales for that year.
The period red-brick features a home cinema, a hidden games room, a sunroom, a bespoke Hampton conservatory and a Clive Christian kitchen. The garden was designed by Jane McCorkell, the Bloom gold medal-winning landscape architect.
Gallagher’s Umbra has been busy in the UK, having backed the fast-growing fintech Hastee, as well as arranging a £200 million debt facility for the lender. It has also invested in HotelMap, the hotel booking technology firm.
Gallagher joined UBS from Morgan Stanley, becoming chairman of its financial sponsors division before leaving to join KPMG, where he became a partner and head of its private equity origination. He set up Umbra about four years ago in an attempt to reinvent merchant banking by using some of the fleeter, slicker parts of the fintech industry with high-net-worth funding.
The sale of Gallagher’s Dublin bolt hole may reduce the chance of Umbra doing a deal in Ireland.
Luma health tech tracker in good hands
I see that Liam Casey’s PCH International, the Spar magnate John Clohisey and the telecoms entrepreneur Tony Bermingham are among the backers of Luma, Darran Hughes and Roisin D’Arcy’s rebooted healthtech firm.
John Mullen, who was one of the co-founders of the IT group Version 1, is an investor via his Ampelmann vehicle while David Mee, whose family sold the software firm AMT-Sybex for €114 million back in 2014, is also on the cap table.
Hughes and D’Arcy developed a piece of wearable tech to track assorted health and fitness metrics through your ear. While fitness data junkies — the ones who tell you about the number of steps they’ve done or their saturated oxygen levels — may drive you demented, there’s no stopping the trend.
Quarterback scores with St Patrick’s Athletic
Joe Flacco is one of a group of American sports stars to invest in St Patrick’s Athletic
GEORGE WALKER IV/AP
The veteran Joe Flacco stepped in as emergency quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts last month to steer them to victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Flacco, 39, won the 2023 NFL comeback player of the year award for taking the Cleveland Browns all the way to the playoffs.
Who cares? Well, Joe is one of a clutch of American sports stars who invested in St Patrick’s Athletic, the League of Ireland football club. St Pat’s are on a revival themselves, stringing together six straight league wins to gatecrash the title race. The club has its own comeback king in the former Republic of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny, who knows how to win this league.
St Pat’s majority shareholder, the former property mogul Garrett Kelleher, will be hoping the sporting gods are shining on Inchicore.
The club’s stellar form is putting the pressure on Mickey O’Rourke’s Shelbourne, which under Damien Duff, the one-time Kenny assistant, has led the league for most of the season. Also in the mix are Derry City, backed by the E&I squillionaire Philip O’Doherty, and the Dermot Desmond-backed Shamrock Rovers.
Good God, could League of Ireland football actually be getting interesting?
Kerry trader is king of real tennis court
Ever since his hedge fund Comac Capital returned money to external investors following the shock devaluation of the Swiss franc, the high-flying, Kerry-born trader Colm O’Shea has kept a low profile. The Cambridge-educated O’Shea was once among the highest-paid traders in the world, with Forbes estimating that he took home $100 million in remuneration in 2012.
At its peak, Comac Capital was the 21st biggest hedge fund in the world based on assets under management. Having given back the external funding, Comac now manages O’Shea’s own balance sheet. He is also a main mover at the Holyport Real Tennis club in Berkshire, southeast England.
• Who can resist the draw of the world’s oldest tennis court?
New filings now suggest that he’s “a person of significant control” of the club, which was rescued by a consortium in 2013. Real tennis is the original tennis sport played indoors with a fabric-covered cork ball and odd-looking wooden rackets. While the lads in Fitzwilliam and Carrickmines might beg to differ, it’s a little bit posher than the modern game.
Citibank job is a marathon, not a sprint
Davinia Conlan, who runs Citibank in Ireland, has got the runners on. I hear she’s getting ready to run her first marathon.
Davinia Conlan: on her marks
Conlan and a group of fellow Citibankers are running the Dublin marathon on October 27 in aid of cancer research. There’s an iDonate page to support their efforts. Conlan became Citi’s country manager last year, having done a stint as the bank’s interim Ireland chief.
The bank has about 3,000 staff in Ireland and its new offices near the 3Arena are sprouting up out of the ground — the marathon runners might be able to see it on their way around.
