Telecoms entrepreneur Denis O'Brien has been eliminated from a final shortlist of four bidders for the cable television company NTL Ireland.
Mr O'Brien had teamed up with US-based private equity firm Carlyle Group to fund a bid but was informed recently that it had not made the final shortlist.
The parent of Chorus, multinational cable company UGC Europe, has progressed to the final round of bidding. Three other consortiums will also compete for NTL Ireland, which supplies about 340,000 people with cable television services in Dublin, Galway and Waterford.
One of these consortiums is headed by Kerry-born cable veteran John Riordan, who has teamed up with venture capital firm Doughty Hanson. The other two successful bidders are US merchant bank specialising in media Veronis Suhler Stevenson, and Irish media group Setanta, which is fronting a bid for its own financial backer, insurance firm AIG.
The failure of Mr O'Brien to progress to the final round of bidding reflects the level of indicative bids made by each party for NTL Ireland. It is believed that the four successful firms made initial bids above €260 million, suggesting that the final price tag could be close to €300 million.
The four shortlisted bidders have until the end of March to submit a best and final offer to Goldman Sachs, the investment bank that is organising the sale with NTL Ireland's owners. Over the next few weeks, all the shortlisted bidders will undertake due diligence on NTL Ireland's cable network. It is understood that NTL Ireland management has indicated that the cost of upgrading its network to carry broadband internet is about €55-€70 million.
This is the second time that Mr O'Brien has been unsuccessful in an attempt to buy the cable television network. In 1999 he was outbid by NTL for Cablelink, which was sold for €680 million - a price that NTL now concedes was way above its real valuation.
At the time Mr O'Brien reacted angrily to losing the bidding war and even began a High Court challenge to block the sale. However, a few years later when the telecoms market collapsed, he admitted that failing to buy NTL had been a very lucky escape.
Mr O'Brien has vast experience in the telecoms sector. In 2000, at the height of the dotcom boom, he sold Esat Telecom to British Telecom for more than €2 billion. He is also a founder of the Caribbean mobile phone firm Digicel, which raised more than $408 million (€305.8 million) in funds this week.
