Irish Engineering Firms Capitalize on AI Sector Growth
The proprietors of an engineering company based in Cookstown have become the latest Irish industrialists to benefit from the rapidly increasing demand for equipment essential to the artificial intelligence (AI) industry.
TES Group has been acquired by Legrand, one of France's largest industrial corporations.
The financial details of the transaction have not been made public, but the acquisition price is believed to exceed £100 million.
Foresight, a private equity firm that invested in TES two years ago, reported that it achieved a fourfold return on its initial investment.
The acquisition was motivated by TES's proficiency in designing and manufacturing power systems for data centres.
Data centres are essentially warehouses filled with computer servers that are crucial to the operations of AI companies.
These facilities require a substantial and continuous power supply, not only to operate the servers but also to support the advanced cooling systems necessary to maintain optimal performance.
Major corporations such as Microsoft and Google have been investing billions of pounds in these centres as they compete to develop the fastest and most effective AI services.
In 2025, investment bank Morgan Stanley estimated that up to $3 trillion (£2.2 trillion) will be invested in data centres to support AI between 2025 and 2029.
This surge in investment has driven growth for specialist companies like TES, which provides the critical power infrastructure required by data centre developers.
Brian Taylor, the company's chief executive, stated, "In the past few years we have scaled our operations at an incredible pace."
This expansion included the opening of a new manufacturing facility in Ballykelly.
Following the completion of the deal with Legrand, TES will continue to operate from its two sites in Cookstown and Ballykelly.
Significant Deals in the Irish Data Centre Sector
On Monday, another French company agreed to acquire a firm in the Republic of Ireland with expertise in data centres.
Bureau Veritas announced it would pay €375 million (£327 million) for LotusWorks, a company based in Sligo.
LotusWorks specializes in the final testing and optimization of data centres prior to their activation and manages their ongoing maintenance.
This transaction will result in a substantial financial gain for the management team that has led the company since 2018.
However, these deals are not the largest data centre-related transactions in Ireland in recent years.
In 2025, the Cork-based Dornan Group was sold to the US construction services firm Turner for a reported €400 million (£349 million).
In 2024, the global investment company Blackstone acquired a majority stake in Dublin-based Winthorp Technologies.
Both transactions yielded tens of millions of euros for the companies' founders and senior managers.
The Most Lucrative Deal: Philip O'Doherty's Sale of E&I Engineering
The most profitable deal to date involves Philip O'Doherty.
In 2021, he sold his Donegal-based company, E&I Engineering, to the US firm Vertiv Holdings.
The deal was reported to be worth £1.45 billion in cash and shares, with approximately 80% allocated to O'Doherty and the remainder to smaller shareholders.
The most significant aspect of this deal has proven to be the Vertiv shares O'Doherty received.
The transaction occurred before the AI boom had fully commenced, at which time each Vertiv share was valued at around $25.
Currently, Vertiv's share price is approximately $250.
Since April 2024, O'Doherty has been gradually selling his Vertiv shares.
His latest sale in March 2024 generated about £298 million, bringing his total proceeds from share sales to approximately £950 million.
He still holds Vertiv shares valued at just under £1 billion.
In addition, the cash portion of the deal was worth about £700 million.
Altogether, the total value of the deal has amounted to roughly £2.5 billion, establishing him as the most successful Irish industrialist of his generation.
