Noel Kelly
ANOTHER JUDGMENT has just been registered against the Pulse F6 telematics business where a significant backer turns out to be the private investment company controlled by Tipperary moneybags Noel Kelly.
Kelly – or Dr Noel Kelly as he prefers, thanks to his honorary doctorate from the ‘International Management Centres Association’ – is one of the country’s more experienced entrepreneurs, having earned his stripes as a senior suit in the successful engineering outfit Kentz Corporation, where he held a valuable stake and was involved in its London flotation in 2008.
In more recent times, he has served as chair of GMC/Sierra and also as an adviser to the BDO Development Capital Fund.
More significantly, Kelly also heads up his own family-owned private equity vehicle Kellysan Enterprises, where he and his wife Noeleen control 60% of the shares, with the balance shared between his children, Darragh, Brian, Emer and Texas-based Shane. Among the investments by Kellysan were Eddie O’Connor’s Mainstream Renewable Power and Denis O’Connor’s F6 Technology.
Kellysan also acquired the telecoms outfit Anam Technologies, which had been in liquidation and where Darragh Kelly is now in situ as chairman, while Noel fills the CEO role. Anam, which includes Denis O’Brien’s Digicel as a customer, has been expanding in recent years, with offices in Europe, Asia and Africa.
The last accounts for Anam reveal accumulated losses at the end of 2019 of €6.8m, although the company made a profit in the year of €600,000. Kellysan was owed €1/2m.
The accounts that have just been filed for Kellysan include a note from auditors HLB Sheehan Quinn that refers to excess liabilities of €2.1m at the end of 2019, indicating “the existence of an uncertainty in relation to the company’s ability to continue as a going concern”.
The good news, however, is that the company made a profit in 2019 of €1.3m following the disposal of certain investments. Moreover, the directors believe Kellysan “has the ability to manage and pay its day-to-day expenses, as and when they fall due, and the company’s investments commence to generate investment returns”.
One investment that is unlikely to form part of that projection is F6 Technology, a business that will be familiar to fans of Goldhawk. The company behind this telematics operation, Pulse Function F6 Ltd, was the brainchild of accountant and former chairman of Bray Wanderers FC, Denis O’Connor, and attracted some interesting backing, including from the likes of the manager of English Premier League strugglers West Brom, Big Sam Allardyce.
F6 operated in the very high tech arena, having acquired patents for the Event Data Recorder, a telematics system for detecting driving issues such as “drifting, side-slip, roll-over, abrupt turning as well as driving under the influence”. Alas, there was nothing to stop F6 careering off the road as losses accumulated to more than €4.2m by the end of 2014 – the last time figures were filed.
At one stage the Revenue sought to wind the company up but happily that matter was settled. There have, however, been some judgments registered against Pulse Function F6, including a couple from German company Cetecom GmBH, invoice finance providers Grenke and Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council. Last month, F6 was hit for a paltry €3,700 by Datasolve Consulting. There is an outstanding charge registered by Kellysan and secured on the patents.
