Nevada tele.com has succeeded with its takeover bid for Stentor, a Dublin-based telecom company.

By the first closing date it has received acceptances regarding 54.7 per cent of the ordinary shares and 44.4 per cent of the convertible preferred ordinary shares.

CRBF, which funded Stentor's development since late 1998, is the largest shareholder in Stentor and it accepted in respect of 12 per cent of Stentor's ordinary shares and 38.4 per cent of its convertible preferred ordinary shares. But under an irrevocable undertaking by CRBF, the outstanding convertible preferred ordinary shares will be converted into ordinary shares today when Nevada will, in effect, have acceptances in excess of 80 per cent from holders in the two classes of shares.

Then it could compulsorily acquire the outstanding shares.

F&C, another large shareholder, has accepted in respect of its 11.6 per cent holding in the ordinary share and 4.7 per cent of its convertible preference shares.

The offer is now being left open until July 14th.

Nevada, based in Northern Ireland, started trading last August and is a joint venture between wholly-owned subsidiaries of Energis Group and Viridian Group, the Northern Ireland power utility.

It has developed a new telecoms network and introduced integrated voice, data, e-commerce and Internet services for business. Stentor is in a similar business.

Nevada offered 29.3p sterling for each ordinary share and 380.9p sterling for each convertible preference share.

The offer values Stentor at £36 million sterling.

This is below the £45.8 million originally expected but the drop in the consideration was designed to reflect the fall in values of telecom shares.