(11 October 2005 – Ireland) Australian investment bank Babcock & Brown has snagged a 10.8 percent stake in Irish telco, Eircom.Babcock & Brown Capital paid A$350 million for the stake, which will pay management fees of one percent per annum to its associate, Babcock & Brown.
The investment bank has also paid A$55 million for a 1.7 percent slice of Eircom for itself.
Babcock & Brown Capital executive director Rex Comb said he viewed Eircom as a company with robust fundamentals and a positive outlook not fully recognised by the market at the present time.
“Babcock & Brown Capital is an investor with long term capital. We believe Eircom’s fundamentals will deliver increasing value irrespective of reducing operating costs or increasing leverage,” Comb said.
“In contrast to Telstra in Australia, Eircom has an increasingly superior market position and an outlook for top line growth with its re-entry into mobile. Eircom’s market position is more like that of Telecom New Zealand,” he said.