Actavo, the engineering services group owned by Denis O’Brien and Leslie Buckley, has exited its events infrastructure division and sold the business’s assets to one of its main competitors in recent months.The group, formerly known as Siteserv, said that it engaged with “affected employees” at Actavo Events in a “formal consultation process” about redundancies. While it is not clear how many jobs have been lost, The Irish Times understands the unit employed around 40 people. Staff were told of the decision earlier this year following a strategic review of the business over several months.Actavo Events was a significant player in the Irish market for staging, seating and crowd-control barriers, winning contracts from public sector bodies such as the Office of Public Works. It also provided services to the operators of festivals including Forbidden Fruit, Longitude, the Rose of Tralee, All Together Now, Body and Soul and Electric Picnic, according to its website. Last year, it is understood Actavo Events lost a roughly €3 million private sector contract to provide services to a large-scale music and events promoter. However, a spokesman for the group told The Irish Times that the decision was “a strategic one”, and “not the result of the loss of any single contract”.In response to questions last week, the spokesman for the group said: “Following a comprehensive strategic review conducted over a number of months, Actavo took the decision to exit the events business and to focus on its core operations. This reflected strategic priorities.”“At the time the decision was taken, the company had contractual arrangements in place with its principal partners, with a significant period remaining on those agreements.”He said the group has engaged in a “formal consultation process” with the affected staff and had fulfilled its statutory obligations regarding the collective redundancy process.[ Electric vehicles claim top spot in Irish new car marketOpens in new window ]Actavo confirmed that it has sold the events business’s assets. The Irish Times understands the buyer to be Castle Stage Hire, a Newcastle, Co Dublin-based company co-owned by businessman Ian Scully and his business partner Dumitru Cepoi, Companies Registration Office documents indicate. According to his LinkedIn page, Scully is a former project manager at EventServ, the one-time events infrastructure subsidiary of Siteserv, the group that O’Brien and Buckley acquired in 2012 before transforming it into Actavo.Scully and Cepoi, who have been approached for comment on the acquisition of Actavo Events’s assets, each hold 50 per cent of the shares in Castle Stage Hire, which was founded in 2019, through another entity, IDC Contracts, according to company documents.Castle Stage Hire had established itself as one of Actavo Events’s main competitors in recent years. “A number of potential purchasers were considered as part of the process,” the Actavo spokesman said. “The transaction related solely to the sale of certain physical equipment and assets. As a matter of practice, Actavo does not comment on the commercial details of individual transactions.”In consolidated group accounts filed last year, Actavo reported operating profits of almost €13.9 million on group revenues of more than €197.1 million. The group also paid a €10 million dividend to its shareholders in the year, the first such payment since O’Brien and Buckley bought the business. O’Brien and Buckley hold their respective 87 per cent and 13 per cent stakes in Actavo through Isle of Man-registered companies, according to the filings.