any ideas why eircom won't sell to o'brien?

yankinlk

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=463390&issue_id=4764

...or is it simple? valentia is smarter and faster business wise? or are we gonna see an investigation 5 years from now about backhanders etc...that got this deal done behind closed doors?

ConUladh

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Valentia was given irrevocable guarantees by KPN and Telia on the basis that it delivered its formal offer document by last Monday. When it failed to do so, it was given an extension until this Monday</font>

eIsland's comment about this was prob ********.

I think the employees (15% shareholders) are supposed to get better guarantees (with regards to sharholding and job security) under the Valentia offer. I don't think O'Brien bothered his &rse talking to the employees' representatives at all

Anyway didn't the board make their recommendation a couple of weeks ago, O'Brien left it very late in the day to get back

Might come down to his current problems, if the **** hits the fan over Esat (i.e. he's caught out)then it'd be fairly embarassing for him to be owning the biggest telecommunications company in the country (and not even the one he's being done for)

Gladiator

the main reasons are that o brien will fired the whole board of directors the minute he get it,
and the esot group want to buy up to 30% of the company, every 2cent he adds, adds 400 million to what they will have to pay for it,

dahamsta

"any ideas why eircom won't sell to o'brien?"

A fair portion of it sadly comes down to the fact that they just don't like him. Possibly for the reasons Gladiator mentioned, possibly because Denis O'Brien set up two very successful companies in direct competition with their two core (at the time) products - wireless telephony and fixed/leased lines - and they've got a bee in their bonnet about it. This applies to the Eircom board and Eircom employees - I don't know what the deal with KPN and Telia is. But I'd say a good portion of the employees and the board (most of whom don't own shares in the company they run) are holding a grudge, which may of course feel good, but doesn't make particularly good business sense.

One more thing: Both Unison and the Irish Independant are owned by the Independant Group, chaired, oddly enough, by Tony O'Reilly. Coverage by either on the matter should be ignored. The Independant Group newspapers are notorious for printing O'Reilly propaganda.

adam

[This message has been edited by dahamsta (edited 30-06-2001).]

dahamsta

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/finance/2001/0630/fin8.htm
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2001/0630/fro1.htm

jmcc

Probably because Eircom realises that O'Brien's operation will have to eliminate many of them to make the business viable. They would in effect be signing their own redundancy notices. Valentia is effectively a more disparate operation than eIsland and O'Reilly is merely a front man for the operation. Eircom will be broken up - it is only a matter of when. The Eircom employees share trust will effectively cripple the organisation due to having a negative control of the company. These fsckers are still living in the 1970s and think that they should have the same employment protection as civil servants. The Franco method should be employed here to make Eircom an efficient operation. ;-)

Regards...jmcc

Fidelis

I think that everyone is focusing far too much on the fact that they hate Eircon for perfectly viable reasons. Subsequently, after strenuous deliberation with my hand, it's become quite clear that O'Brien knows this and is using careful propoganda to influence public opinion.

Should we hate Eircon for being perpetually ánal ?
Or O'Brien for preying on our fragile minds ?

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Nil Desperandum