Enterpreneur Ray Coyle sold a 15 per cent stake in his Largo Foods crisp-making business last year to Cologne-based food group Intersnack for €15 million.
Mr Coyle revealed details of the transaction to The Irish Times and said the German company might ultimately take a bigger bite of Largo, which makes Tayto, King and Hunky Dory crisps. "They want to buy some more shares at the same price but I haven't decided if I'll do that,"he said.
Intersnack was formed in 1995 through the merger of two large snack food groups and is the biggest producer of salted snacks in Germany, including Chio and Funny-frisch.
Mr Coyle was commenting on Largo's 2007 results, which were filed recently with the Companies Office. They showed that the company's trading profit rose by 43.6 per cent to €7.4 million last year while its sales increased by 22 per cent to €90 million.
Largo was pushed into the red, however, by costs associated with its €62.3 million purchase of Tayto from CC in 2006.
Largo posted a loss for the year to the end of December 2007 of €7.2 million, compared with a deficit of €3.2 million in the previous 12-month period.
