Cable veteran hopes it's third time lucky to acquire NTL

The Kerry-born cable veteran John Riordan is hoping that it will be third time lucky following his multimillion euro bid this week for cable firm NTL

The former Rockwell College student, who rose to become one of the most powerful executives in Europe's cable industry, has twice attempted to buy the cable network in Dublin, Galway and Waterford without success.

"I was part of a consortium that held discussions with the Government when it made RTÉ sell a stake in the cable network to Telecom Éireann," says Riordan, who retains a Kerry brogue, despite living in Britain for years.

"But it quickly became clear that it was being sold to Telecom Éireann and we backed away from it."

Several years later, and after bidding unsuccessfully for the second mobile licence as part of a consortium with AT&T, Riordan was back fronting a bid for the Cablelink network with the pan-European cable company, UPC.

"Interestingly enough, at that stage Goldman Sachs - who are acting as the vendor for NTL - were advising us on the deal. We bid substantially less than either NTL or Denis O'Brien for the network during this process."

Riordan, who retired as president and chief executive of UPC - which is now owned by the European cable giant, UnitedGlobalCom - in November 2003, has now teamed up with US venture capital firm Doughty Hanson to bid for NTL Ireland.

He says his consortium has already lined up bank debt to part finance the bid, which faces strong competition from UnitedGlobalCom and at least one other consortium, fronted by Irish media company Setanta Sports, and backed by AIG and Veronis Suhler Stevenson among others.

"I don't fear anyone in this process," says Riordan, who says it was "inevitable" that at some stage he would come up against former employer UnitedGlobalCom. "I am confident we will win it and haven't considered losing the contest for NTL."

Certainly, Riordan's cable credentials cannot be questioned. Between 1992 and 1997, he served as chairman and chief executive of Princes Holdings - the forerunner of Chorus - before taking the top job at UPC in September 2001, at the height of the dotcom and telecoms crash.

"I think one of the most significant contributions that I made was continuing to grow the UPC customer base and improve its performance as the firm went through the chapter 11 bankruptcy process," says Riordan, whose accountancy skills must have helped him at the time.

He left Ireland to join a chartered accountancy practice in London when he was 19 years old and later set up his own practice, which he sold to his partners in 1969.

Two years later, Riordan founded one of the first computer outsourcing services companies in Britain and began to acquire stakes in firms that were undergoing financial restructuring. He later became chief executive and majority owner of the O'Gorman Prestcold Group, a large refrigeration services and design business.

He also set up the Riordan Group in London, with interests in property development and civil engineering, before entering the cable sector. Following his retirement from UPC in 2003, Riordan spent a lot of time in Kerry, where his family owns the Killarney Heights Hotel.

When it was clear that NTL would sell its cable assets in Dublin, Galway and Waterford, it didn't take him long to dust off his CV and begin looking for partners. He set up a bid vehicle called Augustus International Overseas Limited and submitted a preliminary bid for the assets as early as September last year before NTL had agreed to a sale.

This bid was considerably less than the rumoured €300 million which is now being considered by Riordan, UGC and the Setanta consortium. But with a decision due as early as today on which consortium will win the race for NTL, Riordan is in no mood to discuss valuations.

"It will be a commercial decision and we will be there or thereabouts at the finishing line. I am focusing on winning," he says.

However, regardless of the price paid to NTL by the winning consortium, a substantial amount of investment is required in the Irish network, says Riordan.

"Because of the different age of the network in different areas, it is a combination of some total rebuild of the network and some upgrade. I think €55-€70 million is a conservative figure," he says.

He says the current NTL management has done a good job in the recent harsh economic climate for cable firms, but he politely describes a government decision in the early 1990s to sell a majority stake in the cable firm to the incumbent telecoms firm Telecom Éireann - now bitter rivals in the broadband sector - as "swimming against the tide".

"The result of that decision has been a lack of investment and modernisation and while it is an opportunity that was missed, I don't believe it is an opportunity that has gone away," he says.

Riordan says that he is dedicated to fully upgrading the NTL cable network for broadband, telecoms and television services.

"We want to offer the triple play as early as possible. We think the bundling of the services would be highly advantageous for customers. The overpowering evidence is that the customer wants a single provider," he says.

He promises to introduce interactivity on NTL's cable television network and new technologies like voice over internet protocol telephony (VOIP).

High-quality customer service, which he describes as "the Achilles heel of the cable television industry", is also critical and will require investment, says Riordan, but says he will not promise what he can't deliver.

But what motivates him to come out of retirement?

"I think that I will make money out of it, but this is not my main motivation," says Riordan. "I am motivated because I want to do a good job in an exciting business that has not received proper attention here up until now."

Within the next few days, he will know if he has finally managed to gain control of the Republic's premier cable network after three attempts. Then the hard work begins - upgrading its network and delivering a quality service for its 350,000 customers.