The battle this week for the fixed-line business of Eircom has shifted between high drama and farce as interested parties at home and abroad jostled for advantage.

The strangest element was the pitting of the telecom group's staff against the interest of the other shareholders. At its simplest, while most shareholders are looking for the highest price possible to minimise their loss on the flotation adventure, the staff, through the Employee Share Ownership Trust (ESOT), is looking for the lowest price so that it can acquire more of the company as cheaply as possible.

With the ESOT holding a key 15 per cent of the company - a holding any successful bidder would probably need - the staff group wields enormous power. Its contradictory priorities raise important issues for staff holdings in companies.

It is not difficult to see why staff would seek some measure of control in their workplace or that, despite being shareholders, their priorities would encompass more than the bottom line. However, if such holdings are structured in such a way that those priorities are allowed to undermine the interests of the majority of shareholders, the Government and others may have a tougher job selling privatised State holdings to the wider investment community.