Swedish investor buys 15pc of Dun Laoghaire-based tech company Zutec
A MAJOR Swedish investment house has purchased 15pc of the shares in Irish construction sector-focused tech company Zutec Holding.
The deal by Athanase Industrial Partners values Dun Laoghaire-headquartered Zutec at €12.6m. In March it became the first Irish company to list on the Nasdaq First North exchange in Stockholm.
After the transaction — which involved a block trade of shares bought off market for close to €2m — Athanase holds 17.2pc of Zutec’s shares.
Athanase is an investment vehicle founded in 2014 by high-profile Swedish businessman Stefan Charette.
Zutec develops software used in the construction sector to log data and manage projects, and is supplying it currently in Australia, the Middle East, Italy, the UK and Ireland.
Zutec CEO Brendan O’Riordan welcomed the deal and said Athanase would bring “experience and expertise” that will “allow us to reach our potential and transform the construction industry through digitisation”.
The construction sector is the second-least digitalised in the world and has long been lagging the overall economy in terms of productivity growth, said O’Riordan.
Trading in the stock has been volatile since its IPO in March, but he said this was due somewhat to the fact that Swedish investors were not used to investing in Irish companies and a Swedish listing made Zutec less visible to Irish investors. The Athanase deal would help in this regard and the share price had rallied, he said.
Last week, Zutec reported a 40pc increase in turnover to €3.25m in the year to the end of June 2018 and O’Riordan said contracted sales suggest the business is “well set to grow in the coming years.”