Unions say Eircom should be nationalised

croo

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0116/1232059653441.html

THE TRADE union movement has urged the Government to renationalise Eircom as a means of facilitating the expansion of broadband and to establish a “national recovery bond” scheme to allow the exchequer to raise money from the public as part of its proposals for dealing with the current economic crisis.

I really really hope we cannot afford it! B&B and their staff (via the ESOT) have milked us for over a decade and now the game is up they want to come back into the Public sector fold !??
Perhaps, if we have to we could buy just the infrastructure - at a knock down/fire sale price of course - it might be worth a look. But now the whole world seems to be going fibre is the eircom copper really worth much anymore?

thebman

Yeah should buy the infrastructure. We won't have fibre here for a long time so might as well take what we can get as cheap as we can get it.

the company can take its debt and fook right off.

watty

There is no point unless B&B keep the debt and the Retail

Mr_Man

The cost of the Anglo bailout and recapitalization of the other banks, plus all of the other commitments the government currently has means that even if they were given the 'wire' they could not afford to maintain it never mind upgrade it.

M.

mumhaabu

Buy back the network yes and upgrade as an open network for all. The gov should not sell services and let B&B keep their toxic debts plus Eircom Retail and Meteor. The Eircom CWU boyos AKA *Hardworkers*:rolleyes: could see the technical staff lumped into a maintainance company and subcontracted to the new National network. Those staff are still classed as Civil Servents from the days of Telecom Eireann and really have got the company buy the balls and own around 35% of it to boot, each Eircom worker from the days of old is worth around €500,000 in shares, pensions plus €40kish/year pensionable wages. There is now way they could be allowed come onto the Gov's payroll, it would be David Begg's wet dream no wonder the Unions suggested it.

What we need is a regulator with a pair of balls and a proper comms Minister unlike the current moron who gave the NBS to Three.... Three :eek::(

bealtine

croo wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0116/1232059653441.html

Perhaps, if we have to we could buy just the infrastructure - at a knock down/fire sale price of course - it might be worth a look. But now the whole world seems to be going fibre is the eircom copper really worth much anymore?

I for one cannot see any value in buying back eircom, the likely outcome is that B+B would saddle any infrastructure part of the company with the majority of the debt and the taxpayers would be left (again) to rescue/bailout the venture capitalists and bankers. These venture capitalists, with their "imaginative" financial instruments, are the ones that got us into this "credit crunch" in the first place and are now crying to the taxpayers to help them. Let them suffer...

On the other hand if the government waits long enough they can pick up eircom for very little at the fire sale.
The investment required in eircom, to bring it up to a modern standard, is phenomenal and I cannot see the government raising the capital for that investment.

The problems involved are staggering, the highest line rental, the rotting decrepit copper, lack of backhaul etc. all these issues have to be addressed.
The only way to address these issues is by investment, so for the foreseeable future eircom's line business will slowly and painfully die.
The first and most important way to address this slow death is to lower the line rental to realistic levels so more people will take on phone lines. More lines means more income and may stem the decline. How to square the circle between investment and lowering the exorbitant line rental is difficult to foresee but it urgently needs to be done.

Perhaps O'Reilly might be "persuaded" to return some of the millions he scurried away with? (Oh look a flock of pigs)

watty

Before Privatisation: over 82% households
Today: Less than 69% and dropping

My Mobile bill pay is now less than the line rental on its own.

Sponge Bob

It is intrinsically worthless until it collapses under the weight of its own debt and goes into examinership . Then the debt can be restructured to a more feasible sub €1.5bn .

The union run ( for some time maybe not now) ESOT will separately go bankrupt under its 'covenants' but so what .They are only parasites and we owe them nothing .

I believe their banker was Anglo Irish !

Slutmonkey57b

Buying back Eircom is an awful idea that benefits nobody but debt-riddled parent companies and theiving ex-state employees. The copper is rotten, the biddies *still* haven't been axed and the state would be crippled by it.

Expect our intrepid minister to announce the buyback in the next 3 months.

Sponge Bob

eircom is a low priority for taxpayers wedge. It will likely go into examinership of some sort but will keep operating and will even maintain some low level capex in examinership .

B and B have NOTHING to do with it anymore , BCM have cut and run

http://business.smh.com.au/business/babcock-severs-ties-to-bb-capital-20081110-5l7k.html

Mind you BCM are nearly a penny stock worth only about €50m now . This means that the Irish Government can buy 65% of eircom for €50m, today , but will then get landed with the debt which now c.€3.8bn-€4.2bn, and an implicit guarantee on all of that .

If it exits examinership with any more than €1.5bn of debt ( ) it will have no value to anybody .

At about €1.4bn of debt load it will be worth €100m and may be worth a punt .

By that stage the ESOT will be also bankrupt and the live issue for ICTU is whether the CWU is in with any guarantees there meaning that they will be bankrupt too .

eircom will keep on trading through all this so I am utterly unconcerned for eircom or for BCM or for the ESOT or the CWU .

I am concerned that the government will move too soon. No need for that at all .

ninjasurfer1

mumhaabu wrote: »

The Eircom CWU boyos AKA *Hardworkers*:rolleyes: could see the technical staff lumped into a maintainance company and subcontracted to the new National network. Those staff are still classed as Civil Servents from the days of Telecom Eireann and really have got the company buy the balls and own around 35% of it to boot, each Eircom worker from the days of old is worth around €500,000 in shares, pensions plus €40kish/year pensionable wages. There is now way they could be allowed come onto the Gov's payroll, it would be David Begg's wet dream no wonder the Unions suggested it.
(

€500,000? I thought it was valued at approx €80-90K following on from b+b buying it?
From talking to a few people i know who work there, they could lose several hundred of the old civil service staff without anyone noticing it!!
I wonder if the govt manage to get rid of jobs in the civil service, would b+b be able to argue a similar case for getting rid of their "civil Service" status staff?

watty

It's not good it you can buy it for €1 and are saddled with $2,000,000,000 to $4,600,000,000 debt.

Sponge Bob

Precisely Watty.

It only becomes worth something _after_ an examinership

bealtine

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Precisely Watty.

It only becomes worth something _after_ an examinership

Waiting for the fire sale so...

Much of this is speculation as nothing has been announced as yet.
I'd say the original piece was putting "out feelers" to see what kind
of reaction was gotten from the government (and others),

PogMoThoin

bealtine wrote: »

Waiting for the fire sale so...

Much of this is speculation as nothing has been announced as yet.
I'd say the original piece was putting "out feelers" to see what kind
of reaction was gotten from the government (and others),

:rolleyes: Yeah, just watch our incompetent government do something stupid like actually bid for it.

bealtine

PogMoThoin wrote: »

:rolleyes: Yeah, just watch our incompetent government do something stupid like actually bid for it.

heh so you think, if it comes up for sale, they'll buy it? Just like they weren't going to buy Anglo Irish bank?
Not enough rich people are involved (or likely to lose their shirts) in eircom for it to become a priority.

Sponge Bob

Look at it another way.

If the government buy BCM for the €50m price it commands on the ASX in Sydney they then become liable or vicariously liable for .

1. UP TO €4.2bn of eircom debt. This they cannot default on without adversely affecting the countries credit rating...a rating that we know is being downgraded from AAA anyway .

2. UP TO €300m of ESOT debt .

3. UP TO €0m of CCM debt officially and officially €100m at hand above share buyback commitments...and yet only worth €50m :eek: ...how utterly odd.

A grand total of UP TO €4.5bn of debt in the structure . This would be ridiculous

If they wait for financial gravity to do its inevitable thing they can get it for about €1.5bn in time and with the ESOT largely out of the picture if not completely out of the picture .

Furthermore they can do a Tony O Reilly and spin it out with €1.5bn of debt off the national balance sheet . They can then flog off retail for aound €150m ..and reduce the debt to around €1.35bn financed by the core cash generating machine ( and key national asset ) namely the Network itself .

All they have to do is wait and let the 'owners' move through their inevitable death march to complete collapse. Nobody else will buy it off the ESOT/BCM with all that debt lying around .

If I were to intervene at all it would merely be to ensure that the ESOT does down the plughole at the same time as does BCM . If that event takes out the CWU in its backwash...the only concern that ICTU has .... then so what .

The ESOT loaded itself with debt to increase its shareholding in eircom to 35% in 2006 and they will have to pay the inevitable price for that.

Tom Young

I'm beginning to believe that the required investment for eircom and the scam that is the never ending ESOT will eventually have to come from either a middle eastern source with enough money to transform the company or another incumbent (which would be viable).

During initial due diligence a number of large US and close to EU telco's looked at eircom seriously.

But nationalisation as mentioned above I can't see being a viable option.

Tom

jmcc

Sponge Bob wrote: »

The ESOT loaded itself with debt to increase its shareholding in eircom to 35% in 2006 and they will have to pay the inevitable price for that.

All those Irish shareholders who were burned on Eircom shares when the traitor O'Reilly plundered Eircom with the collaboration of the crooks in Fianna Fail won't care but I think that they will all smile at the Karmic balance being restored. From a preliminary reading, it looks like the ESOT is in trouble and given all the other financial problems the government has to cope with, bailing out the nest egg of former and current Eircom employees won't be too high on the agenda.

Regards...jmcc

youcrazyjesus!

croo wrote: »

and their staff (via the ESOT)

How have the staff ripped anybody off? Can you tell us?

This was the deal put to them and they voted it in. You can't blame them. They have had to deal with a much changed working environment and many left their secure jobs, as we can see now this is a very important concession. Stop whinging about the staff, they just work there, if you've a problem with anybody blame the stupid Government who sold off a prized state asset to stock market speculators. They should have sold Eircom alright, but at a knocked down price and they should have held on to the physical network and kept it as a cash cow.

youcrazyjesus!

jmcc wrote: »

All those Irish shareholders who were burned on Eircom shares when the traitor O'Reilly plundered Eircom with the collaboration of the crooks in Fianna Fail won't care but I think that they will all smile at the Karmic balance being restored. From a preliminary reading, it looks like the ESOT is in trouble and given all the other financial problems the government has to cope with, bailing out the nest egg of former and current Eircom employees won't be too high on the agenda.

Anybody who didn't make money on the shares after the initial Eircom flotation is greedier than they are stupid. You could have doubled your money.

Sponge Bob

youcrazyjesus! wrote: »

How have the staff ripped anybody off? Can you tell us?

Little baby eircom dude.

the ESOT represents 14000 people most of whom are EX eircom staff. They only represent about 4000-5000 of the current staff ( all there 10 years at least ) and I suspect you are not one of them :cool:

youcrazyjesus!

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Little baby eircom dude.

the ESOT represents 14000 people most of whom are EX eircom staff. They only represent about 4000-5000 of the current staff ( all there 10 years at least ) and I suspect you are not one of them :cool:

Don't meant to be smart but do you read posts before replying?

They have had to deal with a much changed working environment and many left their secure jobs

Sponge Bob

Many took enormous redundancy packages to clear off , eg Biddy god bless her .

The ESOT is an extra income stream that continues despite redundancy .

jmcc

youcrazyjesus! wrote: »

Anybody who didn't make money on the shares after the initial Eircom flotation is greedier than they are stupid. You could have doubled your money.

Some people had invested for the long term. People are strange that way. They expect listed companies to be properly run and worth investing in.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Many took enormous redundancy packages to clear off , eg Biddy god bless her .

The ESOT is an extra income stream that continues despite redundancy .

Looks like they won't have that extra income stream now. I don't think that too many people other than their friends and families will be worried. The Irish people have more important issues to worry about with this recession thing. And those who remember the high prices and rip-off phonebills that had to be paid to Telecom Eireann/Eircom will laugh.

Regards...jmcc

Sponge Bob

And you could NOT have doubled your money on the privatisation but could have got out with a 40% premium RIGHT at the top or a 30% premium like I did about a month after the privatisation .

But don't tell the poor eejits waiting for that Vodafone 'bounce' please.

As for the ESOT they invested nothing and Biddy got yet another €5k before christmas for sitting on her fat arse at home .

The problem with all these regular disbursements to Biddy is that the ESOT is now teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and that ICTU want these parasites to get a bailout

ninjasurfer1

Sponge Bob wrote: »

As for the ESOT they invested nothing and Biddy got yet another €5k before christmas for sitting on her fat arse at home .(

I thought the eircom staff agreed to take a freeze in increases of approx 5% initially to fund the esot in the first place?
In this case, its the younger employees who are getting screwed as they are paying for all of the ex-employess/retired people who still get the esot payout.

Slutmonkey57b

youcrazyjesus! wrote: »

How have the staff ripped anybody off? Can you tell us?

Hmmm.. how about the massive quantities of real estate purchased by us (the taxpayer) and us (the bill payer) and handed over lock stock and barrel to the employee's pension funds? How about the free stock purchased by us (the taxpayer) and us (the bill payer) and handed out to Biddy for years on end, without any reference to Biddy's actual usefulness or job performance?
How about the massive wages paid out to Biddy for appalling service by us (the taxpayers) and us (the bill payers)...? Getting the idea yet?

This was the deal put to them and they voted it in. You can't blame them.

This was the deal demanded by them on pain of going on strike and crippling the nation as a result.

They have had to deal with a much changed working environment and many left their secure jobs, as we can see now this is a very important concession.

Biddy hasn't given anybody so much as a "thank you have a nice day" for years, never mind a concession. As to dealing with a "much changed working environment", I assume this refers to attempts made to actually .. make Biddy do some fcking work for a change? Biddy hasn't been fired, she's taken her Defined Benefit Final-Salary Linked Pension fund, a very fat payoff and a lifetime of doing no work for big money, and flitted off to a new life of making people miserable in new ways. There is a massive and clear divide, as anyone who is a Non-Biddy employee in Eircom will tell you, between those who go in and do some work in the company, vs. Biddy sitting on her arse doing nothing for 3 times the money.

Stop whinging about the staff, they just work there,

Biddy does a lot of things there and work is about last on the list.

Like I said before, this is an appalling idea that only benefits crooks and Biddy. The minister will be only too eager to do it.

ninjasurfer1

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

Hmmm.. how about the massive quantities of real estate purchased by us (the taxpayer) and us (the bill payer) and handed over lock stock and barrel to the employee's pension funds?

Surely the govt gets the blame for including the real estate as part of the initial sale, not the employees? The Govt took the money so its their fault for giving it away for next for nothing.

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

How about the free stock purchased by us (the taxpayer) and us (the bill payer) and handed out to Biddy for years on end, without any reference to Biddy's actual usefulness or job performance?

Again, part of the deal made by the Govt. No employee of any company would turn it down if offered.

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

How about the massive wages paid out to Biddy for appalling service by us (the taxpayers) and us (the bill payers)...? Getting the idea yet?

Sounds like a typical civil servant to me

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

This was the deal demanded by them on pain of going on strike and crippling the nation as a result.

Again, standard civil service policy.

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

Biddy hasn't given anybody so much as a "thank you have a nice day" for years, never mind a concession. As to dealing with a "much changed working environment", I assume this refers to attempts made to actually .. make Biddy do some fcking work for a change? Biddy hasn't been fired, she's taken her Defined Benefit Final-Salary Linked Pension fund, a very fat payoff and a lifetime of doing no work for big money, and flitted off to a new life of making people miserable in new ways. There is a massive and clear divide, as anyone who is a Non-Biddy employee in Eircom will tell you, between those who go in and do some work in the company, vs. Biddy sitting on her arse doing nothing for 3 times the money.

Totally agree with the sentiment of the ex civil servant "biddy" sitting scratching thinking the company (or the Govt before them) owe them a living.
A vast majority of them retain civil service status so do not have to do performance reviews, etc.
Apart from the ESOT payouts, this can be applied to a lot of civil servants.

Pity the newer employees of eircom (<10 years) whose defined contribution pension fund has almost gone down the toilet. They could be left without a pension yet (and feck all esot payments either).



Biddy does a lot of things there and work is about last on the list.

Like I said before, this is an appalling idea that only benefits crooks and Biddy. The minister will be only too eager to do it.[/QUOTE]