Irish duo targeting $2bn acquisition with US flotation

Gary Quin and Patrick Doran using SPAC to raise $345m

TWO veteran Irish businessmen are spearheading plans to raise up to $345m (€283m) in the United States to bankroll a new special purpose investment firm that intends to acquire companies in Europe and North America.

The special investment acquisition company, North Atlantic Acquisition Corporation, is fronted by CEO Gary Quin and president Patrick Doran.

It intends to make its first acquisition targeting a company with an enterprise value of between $1bn and $2bn. It expects to raise an additional $100m via a private placement as it completes its first acquisition.

In a prospectus, the company said that the rapid evolution of the digital economy caused by the Covid pandemic will provide investment opportunities that it can capitalise on.

Mr Quin has held a number of senior roles, including vice chairman at Credit Suisse. A former executive of Denis O’Brien’s Digicel, he was also CEO of telecoms firm Blackrock Communications.

As a senior adviser to US investment giant Blackstone, he played a key role for the firm during the 2012 examinership of Eir, formerly Eircom. That process saw lenders including Blackstone seize control of the then ailing business.

He also advised the government on the sale of its 25.1pc stake in Aer Lingus to IAG in 2015. Mr Quin played a pivotal part in what the prospectus for North Atlantic Acquisition describes as the capital raise for four Irish “blank check” Reit initial stock market flotations: Hibernian Reit, IRES Reit, Cairn Homes and Glenveagh Properties.

Mr Doran sold his Dublin-based packaging company

Americk in 2016 to Spanish group Saica. The Irish firm was established in the 80s. It has production facilities in Ireland and the UK and had annual sales of about €122m at the time it was sold.

Mr Doran, who was uncontactable yesterday, later founded and heads Woodberry Capital, a private investment firm. Its portfolio of assets includes buildings in Belfast, Dublin and Warsaw.

North Atlantic Acquisition intends to acquire businesses in the consumers, industrials or telecoms sectors, but will also look other areas.

Its primary focus will be Europe, “where we have multiple decades of experience and observed SPAC [Special Purpose Acquisition Company] activity to be underdeveloped”, it said.

SPACs are “blank cheque” firms used to take firms public without navigating the traditional flotation process.

Covid crisis will provide likely targets