Eircom firms exit examinership

Eircom has exited examinership with new capital and shareholders in place, the company said today.

The troubled telecommunications group which is composed Eircom Ltd, Meteor Mobile Communications and Irish Telecommunications Investments Ltd, is to be streamlined into one capital structure named Eircom Holdings (Ireland) Limited which will be entirely owned by its lenders.

Singapore Technologies Telemedia (ST Telemedia) and the Employee Share Ownership Trust (ESOT) are no longer shareholders in the new structure.

The business plan advocated by Michael McAteer was approved by the High Court last month.

The restructuring will see with €1.7 billion of debt removed from the company’s crippling €4 billion debt mountain, a reduction of 40 per cent of the group's debt.

The scheme will safeguard most of the jobs of the 6,000-strong workforce. However, around 1,000 job cuts are to be achieved via a programme of voluntary redundancies in the coming years.

The group said the plan provided "the basis for a more sustainable capital structure".

The company said a new board of directors has been constituted with Ned Sullivan remaining as non-executive chairman and group chief executive Paul Donovan remaining as executive director.

Mr Sullivan said: "A new chapter for the group begins today. Our new shareholders are fully committed to a strong future for Eircom.

“Having successfully navigated examinership and the consequent restructuring of the balance sheet, the group can look forward to executing the next phases of its strategy,” he said.