Setanta’s losses at least £450m

Chris Forrester

The scale of the huge losses that Irish pay-TV broadcaster Setanta created is only now beginning to emerge. There will undoubtedly be more revelations when the full scale of the bankruptcy emerges, but for the moment it seems that Setanta’s investors alone will lose some £450m.

Shareholders will lose all their investments, says administrator Deloitte. This means that private equity investors Doughty Hanson will lose £85m, although a spokesman stressed that while unfortunate this needed to be set alongside the significantly larger sums that the firm has under management. Other investors, including Balderton Capital (and Barry Maloney) as well as the two founders, Leonard Ryan and Michael O’Rourke, will lose their complete stakes.

Meanwhile, there’s the question of Setanta’s debt holders, and that separate sum is reportedly some £300m.

Further down the food chain is BSkyB, owed some £5.5m in on-screen fees.

‘Ordinary’ subscribers are being warned to ensure that they have cancelled their Direct Debit bank payments to Setanta.