Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 12 February 2015

Public Accounts Committee

2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
IDA Ireland - Financial Statement 2013
Enterprise Ireland - Financial Statement 2013

10:00 am

Ms Julie Sinnamon:

We made the initial investment in 1997 and we got that back between then and 2007, prior to the company deciding it was going to go public. In 2007, Trinity approached us and indicated it wanted to float the company. We had to decide whether to remain with the company and float or, alternatively, find a way to carve out the EI bit of each of the investments it was involved in. A view was taken. We have a seed and venture capital committee that would be involved in making such a decision, along with our board. The decision was taken by the seed and venture capital committee, and subsequently endorsed and approved by the board, that it was a better option for the organisation to remain as an investor in the fund and be part of the public company. That was driven by the view that there would be more funding available for our client base in that circumstance and that we would take a bigger hit if we took our funding out on a bit-by-bit basis for each of those investments. The decision was taken to remain part of the public company. That takes us up to 2007. At that stage, we took a hit on our shares, in that there was a reduction in the value of our investment relative to the value of our shareholding in the public company.