Admitting he made 'several million' in the telecoms group, Peter Lynch is moving on, writes Arthur Beesley, Senior Business Correspondent

Eircom's outgoing chief financial officer Peter Lynch plans to invest "a few million" from his personal wealth in a new capital management company after he leaves the telecoms group at the end of the year.

But, more than six years into a post in which he saw more corporate action than most financial directors, Lynch (48) says he is ready to move on. Something of an insider's insider at Eircom, his departure comes some months after the group's takeover by Australian fund Babcock & Brown.

If the corporate scene has moved on rapidly from the dotcom fervour that marked his arrival at the telecoms group in 2000, Eircom never lacked for action in the intervening period. While Lynch leaves amicably, there's also a hint of regret. "It's a pity that it's over, but it's over."

He hasn't yet chosen a name for his new venture, but says it will employ 10 or 12 people and concentrate in three business areas: disaster recovery for private equity investors; fixing troubled incumbent firms; and buying companies and running them. "You stick €5 million in. €5 becomes €10 million. €10 million becomes €15 million or €20 million."

Lynch cites US group Alix Partners, a well-respected corporate turnaround specialist, as a model for his own venture. With plenty of mileage on the clock in Eircom, he says he has been plotting his start-up for some time. "The thinking piece is long. The execution piece is always the shortest."

Still, Lynch says he would have an interest in taking up the role of chief executive in another organisation if such a position came his way. "It'd have to be a very good company or a very bust company . . . If an opportunity presented itself, I'd look at it."

After a stint as finance director at Adare Printing, Lynch was hired by Eircom's then chairman Ray MacSharry after the telecoms group received a takeover approach from Esat Telecom founder Denis O'Brien. When Sir Anthony O'Reilly prevailed in that battle, Lynch stayed on.

More than a few fortunes were made in the hectic period of activity since then, during which time there always seemed to be a change of ownership or a refinancing process under way.

But, famously direct as Lynch is, he won't go into any greater detail than acknowledging that he made "several million" during his time at Eircom. "Everybody would have, in the management team," he says.

Largely due to residual anger at its controversial privatisation in 1999, Eircom may still be one of Ireland's more reviled com-panies. Lynch makes no apologies for that - he wasn't working for Eircom during the 1999 initial public offering - and says former chief executive Alfie Kane was unfairly criticised at the time.

"People were very unfair on Alfie at the time. It was a bit oversold, but it wasn't oversold by the management."

Yet the frequent changes of ownership since then have also left Eircom open to the accusation that the interests of its short-term owners were served over the national requirement for investment in its networks, particularly in broadband technologies.

Lynch disputes that, saying the rationalisation of staff and the scrapping of multiple loss-making internet ventures - "silliness" - means the company is much better run today. "We fixed Eircom," he says.

As for investment in the network, he says the thinking at the time of the first flotation was that investment would follow once the company was in private hands. No one saw that the company itself would be sold over and over again, he says.

Indeed, Eircom took strides to cast itself in an expansionist role as an acquirer of interests on the international scene. While the company once led the race for a 3G licence in Britain, Lynch says such an investment would have proved disastrous. "It was the dotcom world. Everybody talked big. It was Texan talk."

So was it a mistake on the Government's part to sell off the network? "I won't criticise it as a mistake," he says. Still, he suggests that the Government is unlikely to deploy the same strategy of selling the electricity network if it ever decides to privatise the ESB or parts of it.

As for broadband, Lynch says Eircom is nursing losses of some €145 million on its roll-out of the network so far. While another €200 million is needed to complete that task, he says Eircom will need State money to set about that task. "Nobody in the capitalist world is going to voluntarily dump €200 million more on that."

Lynch believes his Eircom experience and the turnaround process in the Adare operations is an apt preparation for his venture. He hopes to run the company as a partnership in which he will be lead partner. "As we used to say in stockbroking - next."