Eircom's EGM to approve the sale of its mobile division Eircell to Vodafone will be held at The Point in Dublin on May 11. Shareholders will shortly be sent a circular explaining the deal. The company's board is to unanimously recommend approval of the deal, though a statement said it would continue to monitor the Vodafone share price in the period leading up to the EGM.
Eircom also said talks were continuing with Denis O'Brien's eIsland consortium, and with a consortium involving Dermot Desmond's International Investment & Underwriting, on their offers for Eircom's fixed line and Internet business.
It also said turnover for the year to the end of March would be 2.1 billion euros with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 640 million euros. Both figures include Eircell and do not include exceptional costs and write-downs of its invesment portfolio resulting from a review.
The company has also announced a revised strategy, focusing on its core businesses, under which it intends to implement 'a more targeted investment programme'. As a result, capital expenditure will be lower than planned. It said the strategy was designed to reflect a 'challenging' regulatory environment, increasing competition and falling prices in its core voice telephony business.
Eircom said it would scale back its British and multimedia operations, with a cut in UK staffing levels from almost 100 to a maximum of 20. Its Northern Ireland business is to be more closely integrated with the core business, with staffing levels falling from 180 to 140.
In multimedia, Eircom's two Internet service providers eircomNet and Indigo are to be merged under eircomNet, while the company is exiting its Internet software and content development investments. These changes will lead to the loss of around 200 of the current 530 jobs. The company will defer the roll-out of a DSL based TV service and will focus on a high-speed Internet DSL service.
