Markets

Glandore’s Michael Kelly increases his stake in Poolbeg Pharma

Most recent acquisition makes managing director the company’s second-largest shareholder after founder Cathal Friel

From left: Prof Luke O’Neill, independent non-executive director and scientific advisor at Poolbeg Pharma; Ian O’Connell, chief financial officer; Jeremy Skillington, chief executive; and Cathal Friel, non-executive chairman.

Barry J Whyte
Sat May 4 2024 - 06:00

Glandore managing director Michael Kelly has increased his stake in Cathal Friel’s Poolbeg Pharma to nearly 5 per cent, new stock exchange filings show.

Mr Kelly now holds a 4.8 per cent stake in the company having bought up 5.8 million shares in mid-March, an acquisition which has just been disclosed to the markets.

The purchase of the shares would have cost him just under £600,000 (€699,000) at the company’s price at the time of around 10 pence.

His total stake in Poolbeg is now worth around £2.8 million, as its shares have risen in price to closer to 12 pence per share. The recent acquisition has made him the second largest individual shareholder in Poolbeg, after its founder, Mr Friel.

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Mr Kelly is the managing director of Glandore, a company that offers co-working hubs for tech companies in Dublin and Belfast. Its clients have included Facebook, Dropbox, Twitter, Yelp, Rapid7 and Bloomberg, according to Mr Kelly’s own LinkedIn page.

Glandore also owns Suesey Street restaurant and the No 25 private dining facility, both on Fitzwilliam Place in Dublin.

Poolbeg Pharma was founded as a spin-off from Mr Friel’s company Open Orphan, now called hVivo, and floated on the London stock exchange’s AIM market in 2021. It focuses on developing new drugs to combat infectious diseases.

Mr Friel recently stepped down as chief executive to be replaced by Jeremy Skillington, and now serves as executive chairman.

The company also hired a number of executives from Amryt Pharma, another Friel-related company which was sold last year for nearly $1.5 billion. The hires included Laura Maher, David Allmond and John McEvoy, a move Mr Friel described as “getting the band back together”.

The company’s board of advisers also includes Luke O’Neill, professor of biochemistry in Trinity College’s school of biochemistry.

In a recent interview with the Business Post, Mr Skillington said the company could reach a €1 billion valuation.

Poolbeg has yet to generate any revenue, but had a cash balance of £14.1 million on June 30th last, down from £16.2 million at the end of 2022, it revealed in half-year results published in June.

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