Full coverage: Devenish

The Sligo businessman is putting an end to a long career at the head of the group that helped him win the Entrepreneur of the Year competition.

To complete its conversion from feed manufacturer to green ag-tech solutions provider, Owen Brennan’s group needs more finance – and to attract new investors, it has promised to favour them in a future sale of the business. Will they match the valuation put on the group in recent internal transactions?

A destructive fire plunged the Belfast-based agri-tech group into the red in 2020 and triggered a board reshuffle, but growth was slowing before that. To turn R&D into profit, its CEO Richard Kennedy says the group now wants to bring in new shareholders.

The Belfast-based livestock nutrition company is investing massively in its new global research and development centre in Co Meath, where it hopes to produce carbon-neutral beef and dairy by 2025. But the lenders behind a €118m refinancing package are keeping a close watch as its existing business faces the challenges of Brexit and Covid-19. To provide guarantees, Owen Brennan’s group has been reorganising.

Devenish chairman Owen Brennan talks about turning a Belfast feed mill into a £200m agri-technology global group, harnessing nature for business and following in the footsteps of history’s first farmers.