It looks as if the e-Island consortium, led by Irish entrepreneur and former Esat Telecom chief, Denis O'Brian, will lose out on the chance to be the majority shareholder of Ireland's former state telephone monopoly. E-Island appears to have submitted a new bid increasing its offer for Eircom's fixed line assets from Euro 1.20 to Euro 1.22 per share as well as offering the Employee Share Ownership Trust (Esot) a 24.9 per cent stake in the company, just a little too late in the day.
The Valentia consortium has put a spanner in the works for e-Island after meeting with the Esot last week when it was agreed that Valentia would provide Esot with a 29.9 per cent stake. The Esot's support is crucial in securing the bid as it already owns 14.9 per cent of Eircom and it is likely that Esot's larger stake in the company will be enough to block any further bids from rival firms.
Headed by Sir Anthony O'Reilly, Executive Chairman of Independent News & Media PLC, Valentia has refused to disclose its cash offer and the price agreed between itself and Esot for the latter's stake has not been revealed either.
The Eircom board is due to meet today (Tuesday) to discuss Valentia's and e-Island's bids as well as reaching an agreement on which date it will announce the company's annual results. The company is denying accusations that it is delaying the announcement despite earlier promises to publish the results at the end of May.
It really isn't Denis O'Brian's week, as he is facing an investigation over various property deals in connection with Michael Lowry (former telecoms minister) and he has been questioned over a $50,000 donation he gave to Ireland's ruling party, Fine Gael, in 1995 which was just a couple of months after his Esat Telecom company had been granted Ireland's second mobile telephone licence. Mr O'Brian has refuted the allegation that he asked the chairman of Telenor Mobile Communications - a former partner with Esat - to present the payment on his company's behalf.
.
Network Tweets
Network BlogsContent
provided by
|
Archive | Resources | Partners | Site Map | Links | Newsletter Archive | Contact | RSS Feeds | About | Syndication | Advertising & Marketing | Recruitment | Terms & Conditions | Privacy & Cookies
Copyright © 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Tax-News.com
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Tax-News.com has taken reasonable care in sourcing and presenting the information contained on this site, but accepts no responsibility for any financial or other loss or damage that may result from its use. In particular, users of the site are advised to take appropriate professional advice before committing themselves to involvement in offshore jurisdictions, offshore trusts or offshore investments.
Write a comment