Analysis: Organising a refinancing must be difficult at the best of times but the process must be all the harder when the deal needs to be done in double-quick time and its scale is huge.

Waterford Wedgwood's latest attempt to position itself for the global recovery falls squarely into this category, with the company's bankers effectively threatening disaster if the refinancing was not to their liking and did not happen urgently.

This left Waterford in a rather unenviable position and probably goes a long way to explaining why the company has decided on the new capital structure that emerged yesterday.

The rights issue, for example, could have been bigger and the bond smaller, but such a move would have called for an extraordinary general meeting to authorise a larger share capital and, therefore, would have delayed the time-pressed process.

The expense attached to a €165 million bond paying out about 10 per cent a year, while hardly desirable, must have been more or less unavoidable.

The extension to the maturity on other forms of debt, meanwhile, will lock the company into expensive interest repayments for longer than investors may previously have expected but, again, choices were probably limited.

That said, the market was broadly positive on the new structure yesterday, with Waterford's encouraging comments on current and future trading no doubt helping investors to swallow the refinancing medicine.

The firm's ongoing headcount reduction and move to outsource some of its costly manufacturing to cheaper facilities in China are also viewed as sensible moves.

The apparent success of the latter decision will naturally lead to unwanted focus on the group's remaining factories in high-cost European locations, including Waterford.

Executives were yesterday quick to definitively exclude any more such shifts, arguing that English china needed to be made in England and Irish crystal in Ireland, but past experience has shown that positions on such issues can change if necessary.

For the moment, however, the slimmed-down Waterford appears to have done as much as it can to position itself for the long-awaited uptick in demand for its luxury goods.

The one remaining unknown in the picture is the dollar, which has been unhelpful to Waterford Wedgwood, as the 50 per cent of its profits made in the US have shrunk significantly when translated into euros.

The company has currency cover until March next year at $1.10 but the period thereafter is, for the moment, more uncertain.