Denis O'Brien

Denis O'Brien (born 19 April 1958) is an Irish billionaire businessman, and the founder and owner of Digicel.

O'Brien was born on 19 April 1958 in Cork city.

He has one brother and two sisters, and grew up in the Ballsbridge area of Dublin.

His father created a medical supply company and later a horse nutrition business.

As a child, Denis accompanied his father on business trips, where he learned how to close sales.

He attended The High School in Rathgar, where he was once suspended for three months, until the school asked him back to participate in a rugby championship.

His first job was as a hotel bellhop at age 14, and he started working on building cleaning jobs at 15.

In 1977, O'Brien received a BA in politics, history and logic at University College Dublin.

While attending UCD, he received a scholarship to attend Boston College, where he completed an MBA.

Upon his return to Dublin, O'Brien was employed at a small investment bank, Trinity Bank, but he left that job to become a personal assistant to Tony Ryan, owner of an aircraft leasing company.

O'Brien has spent most of his career in the communications technology and mass media industries.

He has also been a part owner of energy, aerospace, and industrial service companies.

O'Brien was until early 2021 the owner of Communicorp, a media holding company operating across Europe.

He started the company in Ireland in 1989, where it has owned independent radio stations like Newstalk and Today FM.

The company expanded to markets in Eastern European countries, later selling some of its stations to local operators.

In 1991, O'Brien formed a telecommunications consortium called Esat Telecom to compete with the state-owned Telecom Eireann.

In partnership with Telenor, Norway's state telecom operator, Esat formed Esat Digifone, which made a successful bid for Ireland's second GSM mobile licence.

Circumstances around the awarding of the licence to Esat Digifone became the subject of the Moriarty Tribunal.

On 7 November 1997, Esat Telecom Group plc held an initial public offering and was listed on the Irish Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange, and NASDAQ.

In 1999, O'Brien co-founded aircraft leasing company Aergo Capital, in which he owned an 80% stake.

In 2000, Telenor made a bid for control of the company, but O'Brien sold it to BT, reportedly making €250 million from the sale.

In the late 2000s, O'Brien began purchasing shares of Independent News & Media (INM), ultimately spending an estimated €500 million to amass a 29.9% stake in the company.

O'Brien clashed with the company's board, especially former owner Tony O'Reilly, who stepped down from his position as CEO in 2009 and sold most of his INM shares in 2014.

In 2014, Communicorp expanded to the United Kingdom, acquiring eight radio stations across the country; in 2017, Communicorp moved its UK radio stations to a new independent company, Communicorp UK, of which O'Brien owns 98% of the shares.

In February 2021, O'Brien sold Communicorp to Bauer Media Audio for approximately €100 million.

From its inception until 2014, Aergo traded more than 150 aircraft with a gross value of over €791 million (approximately $1 billion).

In October 2014, O'Brien and his partner, Fred Browne, sold the company to CarVal, a US investment firm; Browne remained with the new company as CEO.

In 2014, allegations arose that Stephen Rae, a group editor at INM, ordered amendments to a column by Sunday Independent editor Anne Harris that contained references to O'Brien.

He was listed among the World's Top 200 Billionaires in 2015 and was Ireland's richest native-born citizen for several years.

His business interests have also extended to aircraft leasing (Aergo Capital), utilities support (Actavo), petroleum (Topaz Energy), football (a minority shareholder of Celtic F.C.), and healthcare (Beacon Hospital ).

As former chairman of the Esat Digifone consortium, O'Brien was questioned by the Moriarty Tribunal, which investigated the awarding of a mobile phone licence to Esat, among other things.

In 2021, O'Brien sold his stake in Communicorp and the Pacific operations of Digicel.

O'Brien engages in various philanthropic activities, including being on the board of Concern Worldwide, founding the Iris O'Brien Foundation and establishing a fellowship at Boston College.

In 2015, Paul Meagher, a solicitor for O'Brien, reportedly called INM solicitor Simon McAleese in 2012 to block a story related to environment minister Phil Hogan.

In March 2018, the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) in Ireland applied to the High Court of Ireland to appoint inspectors to Independent News and Media to investigate an alleged data breach.

According to an affidavit filed by the ODCE, invoices for the data interrogation were discharged by Blaydon Limited.

In 2019, O'Brien earned the Award for Outstanding Achievement from the Irish-US Council.

In April 2019, O'Brien and Dermont Desmond, INM's second largest shareholder at the time, sold their shares to the Belgian media group Mediahuis; O'Brien reportedly received €43.5m as part of the deal.

Although he never owned a majority stake in INM, O'Brien was at times accused of exerting significant influence at the company.

In June 2019, Independent News & Media was sold to the Belgian group Mediahuis and de-listed from the Euronext Dublin exchange, thus ending O'Brien's involvement in the group.