Past and present Eircom workers will share a €66 million tax-free payout when the company returns to the stock market next week, writes John McManus.
Employees who are members of the Eircom Employee Share Ownership Plan (ESOP) - set up in 1998 to facilitate the flotation of Telecom Éireann - will be eligible for the payments which average €4,551.
The biggest payout will be to staff who have been members of the scheme from its inception. They will get tax-free payouts of €6,800.
There are 14,502 members of the ESOP. Around 10,000 of them will be in line for the maximum payout.
The 6,000 members who have left the company since 1998 are still eligible for a payment.
Among them is the deputy chairman of the company, Mr Con Scanlon (50), who is also the general secretary of the Communications Workers Union, the largest of the Eircom group unions.
Mr Scanlon's ESOP payment will be dwarfed by the €1 million pension payment and a lump sum of €230,0000 he got for retiring early from Eircom last year to avoid a conflict of interest over his many roles.
He will also get over €600,000 in free shares, and continue to earn €106,000 as deputy chairman, in addition to a similar salary as a full-time trade union official.
Mr Scanlon and the ESOP were the kingmakers just over two years ago in the battle for Eircom between the Sir Anthony O'Reilly-led Valentia Telecommunications and Mr Denis O'Brien's e-Island.
The 450,000 small shareholders forced to sell to Valentia in 2001 took substantial loses on the €3.90 a share they paid in the government-sponsored flotation of Telecom Éireann in 1999.
The €66 million payout to ESOP members will come from the sale by Eircom of preference shares in the flotation, and will be paid within weeks of the Initial Public Offer (IPO).
The ESOP will see its stake in Eircom fall slightly when it returns to the stock market this month, but it will still be worth around €343 million.