It really has been quite an extraordinary start to the year for Denis O'Brien and Esat Telecom with the shares on the Nasdaq going ballistic in the first week's trading of 1999.

At the time this column was being written Esat shares were up over 20 per cent on the turn of the year, despite the preChristmas note from Davy analyst Scott Rankin which warned of a hit to near-term profits because of higher costs.

Davy emphasised that the shares - trading at the time at $34 (29) - were well-supported, but there were few who felt then that the shares were set for quite such a take-off. But telecom shares worldwide have soared in the past few days, with the in-built stock shortage in recent privatisation stocks such as France Telecom and Deutsche Telecom and corporate moves like Vodafone/Airtouch driving the sector skywards.

And even the news that George Soros - one of the original investors in Esat two years ago - had been gradually selling off his 5 per cent stake in recent months has had had no negative impact on the shares. The surge in the Esat share is timely, as the group is likely to move towards a Dublin market listing in the months ahead. The Easdaq listing taken by Esat has not been a great success and there is a belief that if Esat wants to widen its shareholder base to include a sizeable number of European institutions, it will need to have its shares traded on a more visible European market than Easdaq.