O'Brien: vast wealth founded on mobile phone license

Denis O'Brien is on the way to becoming the richest Irish person in the world. At present, according to The Sunday Times Rich List, he is worth €2.3 billion and that is set to double in three to four years became of the huge success in the Caribbean, Central America and now the pacific of his mobile phone company, Digicel.

Born on 19 April 1958 (still only 49), he got an arts degree from UCD, an MBA in corporate finance from Boston College and an honorary doctorate from his alma mater (UCD) – not yet has he indulged a prevalent vanity by insisting on being referred to as “Dr” O'Brien.

His career was transformed by his company, Esat Digifone, winning the second Irish mobile phone license. He personally netted €317 million from the sale of the company to British Telecom in January 2000. He opted to reside in Portugal which saved him a capital gains tax bill or around €50 million, a move much criticised given that the basis for his enrichment as in large part because of a grant from the state.

The award of that licence to Esat by the Rainbow government led by John Bruton, has been investigated by the Moriarty tribunal, following allegations that he financed the then Minister for Transport and Communications, Michael Lowry, whose Department awarded the license. However after years of enquiries there is no evidence that Lowry had any part in the decision on which of the bidders for the license should be successful or that he received any monies from Denis O'Brien.

In January 2006 he first took a stake IN&M and has increased his position three times this year. He now holds an 8.35 per cent (64.2 million shares) stake in the company.  He was Chairman of the Special Olympics World Summer Games when they were held in Ireland in 2003.
He has recently transferred his residence (for tax purposes) from Portugal to Malta for reasons of “tax efficiency”.

He has extensive media interests here through his company Communicore, first through the Dublin music station 98fm which began broadcasting in 1989 and more recently to Newstalk, which went on air as a Dublin station in 2002 and as a national station in September 2006.