Not a terribly good week for the Irish market, with speculation of interest rate rises in the US and Britain driving financial shares sharply lower, although industrials managed to hold their ground in a market which found little inspiration from overseas.
The expansion of the Irish market got a boost, however, with the overwhelming vote by members of First National Building Society to demutualise and convert to First Active plc later this year. How much First Active will be worth will obviously depend on the state of the market at the time of the flotation, but a likely starting market capitalisation is between £250 million and £300 million, putting it about number 25 in the Irish market pecking order.
A lot further away but of immensely greater significance to the market is the privatisation of Telecom Eireann in mid-1999. June next year seems the most likely time for the flotation, which will see the Government sell at least half of the 50.1 per cent of Telecom it will own immediately before the flotation.
With a starting market capitalisation in the order of £3 billion and a weighting in the ISEQ of around 7 per cent, Telecom shares will undoubtedly be in strong demand, especially as it is expected that the flotation will be priced to attract the largest number possible of private shareholders.
The Irish Permanent, Irish Life and Norwich Union flotations have all gone a long way towards creating a greater public awareness about share ownership, but the Telecom float could be the real catalyst towards creating a much broader shareholder base in the State.
The decision to liberalise the voice telephony market a year ahead of schedule is also a boost to Nasdaq-listed Esat, and should be a help if and when Esat moves to a Dublin market listing.
And with upwards of a dozen technology companies set to float on the Irish market and Nasdaq over the next couple of years, the number of companies listed in Dublin will move to well over 100. With that sort of influx of new blood, those in the market might not even miss the soon departing Fitzwilton.
Whether Dragon Oil - the second-biggest explorer on the Irish market with a capitalisation of £170 million - is also to depart remains to be seen. To be honest, there is not much of an Irish presence on the Dragon share register, which is dominated by Far Eastern interests like chairman Mr Arafin Panigoro, who wants to sell his 46 per cent stake; the only thing Irish about the company is its Dublin listing and its chief executive, Dr Oliver Waldron.
A single buyer of the stake would, of course, have to make a mandatory bid for Dragon unless given a "whitewash" by the Stock Exchange. The other alternative is to place the Panigoro stake, which might be a more favoured route given the strong demand for Dragon shares on the back of the group's Caspian Sea oil interests.
The emergence of Green Property as a hostile bidder for Manchester property group, Trafford Park, promises to produce an intriguing clash between Green's Mr Stephen Vernon and the redoubtable octogenarian chairman of Trafford Park, Sir Neil Westbrook.
