Melly plans to return after €100m sale

Entrepreneur Sean Melly plans to get involved in a new business venture after selling his European telecoms firm Etel for about €100 million.

Entrepreneur Sean Melly plans to get involved in a new business venture after selling his European telecoms firm Etel for about €100 million.

Melly said he was ‘‘open to finding the next opportunity’’, and was particularly interested in firms in need of restructuring or with merger and acquisition potential. Although Etel was Melly’s second telecoms business, he said his interest was ‘‘absolutely not confined to telecoms at all’’.

Melly founded Etel in 1999 and the firm had turnover of about €135million from its operations in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. It was bought late last week by Telekom Austria.

The deal is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close in the first quarter of next year. The main beneficiaries of the deal will be private equity firms Intel, Argus, Greenhill and Darby Overseas, which had invested about €100 million in Etel since its foundation. It is not clear what Melly’s gain from the deal will be. Melly is a non-executive director of Etel, which is chaired by his close associate, Bernard Somers. The company considered floating on the Alternative Investment Market earlier this year, but instead hired investment bank Lazard to review its options.

Source: sbpost.ie