O'Brien declines to rule out any future involvement with Eircom

Millionaire entrepreneur Denis O'Brien has not ruled out taking an interest in Eircom, which is currently in takeover talks with Austtralian investment house Babcock & Brown.

Mr O'Brien, whose E-Island group lost out to the O'Reilly led Valentia consortium in the battle for ownership of the telecoms group in 2001, said yesterday he "wouldn't like to say at this stage" if he would get involved with an approach for Eircom again. The businessman was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Irish Proshare Association conference.

Eircom faces its fourth change of ownership in seven years following a fresh takeover approach from Babcock & Brown Capital earlier this month. The fixed-line phone operator has been floated twice on the stock market since its sale by the Government in 1999.

The Australian investment group now owns at least 21 per cent of Eircom's stock, the phone company said last week, bringing the fund's holding close to the symbolic 21.5 per cent held by the staff-controlled Employee Share Ownership Trust (ESOT). The increased stake means Babcock & Brown, like the trust, can block any other bid for Eircom because without its support no other bidder can cross the 80 per cent threshold after which they can compulsorily acquire the remaining shares in a company.

Dublin traders have expressed a belief that the Australians are unlikely to stop buying shares in Eircom until they accumulate 29.9 per cent, just below the level at which a mandatory bid would be required.

Mr O'Brien has been developing his interests in property, radio, media, venture capital and telecommunications over the past few years. He took a 3 per cent stake in Independent News & Media in January, although declined yesterday to comment on the intention behind the purchase.

The entrepreneur founded Esat Telecom in 1991 and sold it to BT in 2000. He then moved on to Digicel, a mobile phone operator that has invested $1 billion (€841.5 million) since it started in Jamaica five years ago.

Digicel operates in 15 countries in the Caribbean and plans to be operating in 22 countries by the end of this year, a spokeswoman said.

"We are looking around for good opportunities to be a second operator," Mr O'Brien said yesterday.

"The Middle East and Pacific rim are within what we are looking for. The applications for Fiji and Samoa are already in."

Mr O'Brien attended the conference after returning the previous day from Ukraine, where his Communicorp media group bought two radio stations in January.

He intends to develop the new radio business after national advertising in the former Soviet state rose 100 per cent in a year.