Eircom shareholders at the company’s AGM today unanimously voted in favour of the company’s €2.4bn sale to Australian investment firm Babcock & Brown. According to Eircom documents, 99.92pc of shareholders voted in favour of the sale.
This is the fourth time that Eircom has changed hands in the seven years since the company floated in 1999.
The shareholders, largely financial institutions and not the 500,000 Irish citizens who lost out after buying shares when the Irish Government first sold the company in 1999, voted in favour of the sale to Babcock & Brown.
The current shareholders stand to make a 62pc profit on the sale after buying into Eircom two years ago when it returned to the public markets in London and Dublin.
Another powerful group of investors to gain from the sale will be the Eircom Employee Share Ownership Trust (ESOT) whose membership consists existing and former employees.
According to Eircom documents, application will be made for the ordinary shares to be removed from the Official lists of the UK Listing Authority and Irish Stock Exchange Limited with effect from close of business on 17 August 2006.
By John Kennedy
