Dermot Desmond
Dermot Desmond, (born in
1950) in
Dublin,is an
Irish businessman.
He is the largest shareholder in
Celtic F.C.. He founded the Irish stockbroking company
National City Brokers (NCB) and is credited with being the inspiration behind the
International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). His other interests include
London City Airport, the Barbados
Sandy Lane Hotel, eLearning company Intuition [
1], the
BETDAQ betting exchange and the GIS software house eSpatial[
2]. He also owns Bottin (International) Investments Ltd. [
3] and International Investment Underwriters (IIU). He also has a majority holding in Daon, the biometrics company and was the majority investor in Baltimore Technologies, the software security firm that fell prey to the technology bubble of the late nineties. Desmond made over €90m when selling his shares in 1999.
Desmond purchased London City Airport for stg£23.5m in 1995 from the Mowlem group. The investment was considered a large risk at the time as London's docklands was in recession and Canary Wharf was in receivership. The airport has since gone on to become one of the busiest transit points in the UK [
4].
Desmond is ranked #746 in Forbes listing of billionaires
