NEW YORK-Telecom Eireann raised about $4.3 billion and erased 10 percent of Ireland’s national debt with its initial public offering, which was priced July 7 and began trading July 8 in Dublin, London and New York.
Investors were attracted to Telecom Eireann’s dominant position in the country’s recently liberalized telecommunications industry and to speculation that the carrier is a possible acquisition target, Reuters reported.
The IPO’s international tranche, which comprised about 45 percent of the offering, was oversubscribed by a factor of 12. The remainder, offered to individual investors, had twice as many prospective buyers as available shares. Nearly 575,000 Irish citizens, a quarter of the country’s adult population, bought Telecom Eireann stock.
The Irish government sold nearly all of its 50.1 percent stake in the carrier. After the stock issuance, Comsource, a consortium owned by KPN Telecom NV of the Netherlands and Telia of Sweden, held about 35 percent. Telecom Eireann’s 12,000 employees own 15 percent. The rest is in the hands of institutional and retail buyers.
Telecom Eireann, with shares now trading on the New York Stock Exchange, is the parent of the principal fixed line and mobile wireless telecommunications services providers in Ireland. As of March 31, Eircell Ltd., the cellular subsidiary, had about 468,000 subscribers.
