Fallon brothers behind Daft.ie secured almost €240m in cash and shares from Distilled sale

Brothers Eamonn and Brian Fallon, who set up property website Daft.ie, secured almost €240 million in cash and shares from the sale of classified listings group Distilled, new accounts show.Dublin-based asset manager Blacksheep Fund Management led an acquisition of the listings group behind Daft.ie, DoneDeal.ie and Adverts.ie in November 2024, but the value of the deal was not disclosed.New financial filings by DH Finance Midco Limited, which now controls Distilled, show the deal to acquire the business was valued at €627.4 million. The transaction consisted of almost €450 million in cash, with €312 million of that sum paid to European online classifieds group Adevinta, which owned 50 per cent of Distilled.READ MOREOther Distilled stakeholders, including the Fallon brothers, shared the remaining €137.8 million cash and some also received €177.6 million in shares in the acquiring company’s parent.Before the acquisition, the Fallon brothers owned a combined 38 per cent of Distilled through their firm DML Capital Unlimited Company, which they owned equally. The firm said it disposed of the stake in Distilled for €238.9 million, which was “settled in part by cash consideration and part in exchange for shares”.Soaring energy costs and why ‘we can’t protect everyone from the impact of war’The new filings for DH Finance Midco Limited show the Fallon brothers now control 16.66 per cent of the voting shares in the new ownership structure each, giving them a combined interest of 33.32 per cent. Based on the balance sheet for DH Finance Midco Limited, which reported net assets of €445.2 million at the end of 2025, the book value of the Fallon brothers’ combined stake was about €148 million.Distilled chairman Paul Kenny, who controlled almost 2.8 per cent of the voting shares before the transaction, also saw his interest in the group fall to 1.2 per cent. Last year, TNK Associates Unlimited Company, a firm Kenny used to hold his stake in Distilled, reported a rise in its investments from €960,000 to €17.3 million. The first set of accounts published by DH Finance Midco Limited, which cover a 13-month period to the end of 2025, represent Distilled’s first period under new ownership. In the period, the group, led by chief executive Eamonn Fallon, made €64.4 million in revenue, with some €59.2 million generated in the Republic.Its group of websites, which employed 173 people, generated a net cash inflow of €17.6 million, but recorded an operating loss of €66 million and pretax loss of almost €80 million.The losses were largely related to €81.9 million in depreciation and amortisation charges, and €14 million of finance costs linked to €188.4 million of borrowings.The accounts, which showed the Distilled group reported fixed assets of €708.9 million, also disclosed that the deal to acquire Northern Irish classifieds businesses PropertyPal.com and UsedCarsNI.com was valued at £89.63 million (€104.5 million), with £63.63 million paid in cash.The filings added that Distilled also agreed a deal in July of this year to acquire 80 per cent of the Conor Moran-founded car-dealer technology company Eskimo Software for €3 million. Distilled was contacted for comment.