Hutchison Whampoa’s $2.6 billion bid for Eircom rejected (Hong Kong, Ireland)
Telecommunications company Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.’s bid of $2.6 billion for Eircom Group, the Irish phone company in supervised credit protection, has been rejected, according to a report by BN.
As per the report, the cash offer by Hutchison’s Three Ireland unit was rejected by the country’s court-appointed examiner because there were too many conditions attached, and that Three Ireland is working on a revised bid.
Further, it is said that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is advising Hutchison, while, Morgan Stanley is Eircom’s adviser.
ComReg to reduce Mobile Termination Rates (Ireland)
ComReg, Ireland’s telecoms regulator has announced that the country’s mobile networks are going to reduce their maximum mobile termination rates (MTR) over the next two years until the end of 2012. These MTR reductions symbolize added reductions to the current MTR reduction plans.
The reductions are being made as part of the understanding that maximum Irish rates would be approximate to the European average.
The details of revised reductions to maximum rates will be effective by 31 December 2010 and will be published in Eircom’s switched transit routing and price list by operators in due course. Further adjustments will be published every six months as the trajectory of other European rates emerges.
ComReg has also started a review of the market for voice termination on mobile networks in line with all of its regulatory obligations.
Eircom in discussion over reorganizing its debt
Irish Telecoms Company, Eircom is in discussion over potential debt reorganization and notified that without action it could violate its bank agreements by next year so.
According to Peter Cross, chief financial officer, all options around the medium agreement question and the longer-term financial structure of the group. These included seeking a renegotiation of its US$4.195 billion debt with its banks, a debt swap or raising fresh equity from its shareholders. He declined to exclude the possibility of following the example of Wind Hellas, the Greek mobile phone operator, which moved its headquarters to London and used a prepackaged administration to wipe out more than US$ 1.271 billion of its unsecured bonds without losing control of the business. There was positive headroom on agreements, pointing to US$ 508.56 Million of cash on the balance sheet, US$177.996 million of cash flow and a kind outline of debt repayments, with US$ 128.411 million due by June 2011 and US$ 547.973 million by June 2014. None of this is about short-term liquidity or cash-flow; it’s simply about agreement rules.
His comments come as the company accounted a cry off in adjusted EBITDA of 3.3% to US$ 850.566 millions on revenues losing 8.5% to US$ 2.288 billion for the year to June 30.
The company slapped by the Irish recession. According to Paul Donovan, chief executive, at this time, the company is not seeing any possibility of recovery, so it would be wrong to predict any substantial improvement around the contour.
Eircom, as a former state-owned company, has 70% of the fixed-line market in Ireland. But after five owners since privatization in 1999, the new owners, Singapore Technologies Telemedia, face one of the highest debt levels of any European telecoms company at 5.5 times earnings before interest, tax, reduction and paying off.
Eircom to launch new mobile service
Eircom plans to launch a new Mobile phone service branded as ‘Eircom Mobile’ later this year over the network of its subsidiary Meteor. It is not clear, what the move will mean for Meteor, which was recently subsumed into Eircom as an operating division
According to Eircom, it has told contractors and developers that it is planning to launch the service later this year, using Meteor’s network.
Last year, Eircom began operating a corporate mobile phone service, also branded as Eircom Mobile.
Eircom introduces 3% rise in prices (Ireland)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Mobile charges have been raised by Irish operator Eircom by an average of 3% and it has resulted in the outrage from the Consumers’ Association of Ireland (CAI). Eircom has announced that it would start rounding billing for out of bundle†minutes up to the next minute, instead of the current per-second basis.
A flat rate for calls to competing operators O2, Vodafone and Meteor will be introduced by the telco instead of variable fees depending on the operator. The changes will have the cumulative effect of increasing average bills by around 3% while the price hike will affect the company’s 500,000 customers on bundled packages who exceed their allotted minutes.
According to Stephen Benyon, Eircom’s group MD for consumer and small business, the company understands that any price change in the current climate is a concern to people and a significant portion of its customer base will be unaffected by today’s changes.
Eircom to introduce changes to current call charges (Ireland)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A number of changes to current call charges has been planned to be implemented by Irish operator Eircom. Eircom will introduce call rounding for all “out of bundle” minutes from July 1, 2010.
As per the new offer, all minutes outside of package/bundle minutes will be rounded up to the next minute instead of being billed on a per second basis as is currently the case. A new set of flat rate day, evening and weekend prices to O2, Vodafone and Meteor mobiles will be offered by the simplified charges for fixed to mobile calls. The minimum call fee for customers on “small business” packages will be replaced by this call set up fee.
EUR 0.053 which is the existing minimum fee charge will be replaced by a fixed call set up charge of EUR 0.048. No price changes have been made for broadband, line rental and bundle subscription.
Eircom suffers 9% fall in revenue in Q1 (Ireland)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: 9% year-on-year fall in the turnover of Irish former monopoly fixed line operator Eircom has been recorded for the nine months ended March 31, 2010 because of intense competition in the country and the impact of economic recession.
From EUR1.518 billion a year ago, the consolidated revenues dropped to EUR1.388 billion (USD1.707 billion). Mobile revenues from Meteor fell 6% to EUR351 million and EBITDA declined by 3% y-o-y to EUR497 million. CAPEX of the company was EUR218 million, compared with EUR270 million earlier and net debt was EUR3.3 billion and it had cash balances of EUR265 million.
According to the company, reductions in pay and non-pay costs resulting from cost saving initiatives introduced during the year and lower direct cost of sales in line with the reduction in revenue lead to the loss.
Eircom to take on illegal music downloader’s (Ireland)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A new ‘three strikes’ policy has been launched by Irish operator Eircom to disconnect broadband customers found to have illegally shared music online. With this move, the Ireland has become the first country worldwide to implement a ‘graduated response system’ for illegal file sharing.
Eircom broadband customers will receive warning from the operator for sharing copyrighted music illegally. Eircom will cut off their broadband connections for 12 months if they continue with the file sharing.
3rd-party Company called Dtecnet will be used by Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) to identify Eircom customers who are sharing a specific list of its members’ copyrighted music on peer-to-peer sites.
BT Ireland to roll out ‘Etherflow’
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The latest phase of the 21st Century Network (21CN) rollout has been launched by telco BT Ireland along with the deployment of NGN Etherflow fibre/radio access equipment at select points across Ireland.
A number of Etherflow points across the country is intended to be expanded by BT. The next generation access infrastructure will also be opened by Eircom to rivals in the coming days.
BT Etherflow is a scalable technology that can grow with a business at a lower price per megabit than existing network services. BT would be enabled to provide an end-to-end network service with the help of this Etherflow besides providing local access circuits at one end and seamless connectivity to BT’s global networks at the other.
