Valentia presents eircom bid to Irish markets

The Valentia consortium, headed by Dr Tony O’ Reilly, has confirmed that itpresented an outline document of its offer for Eircom…

The Valentia consortium, headed by Dr Tony O’ Reilly, has confirmed that itpresented an outline document of its offer for Eircom to the Irish markets this morning.

A spokesman for Valentia told ireland.comthe document - 2.5 document - was drawn up on Saturday and precedes publication of the full offer which is expected in four weeks.

Under the terms of the offer, shareholders will receive their funds in the form of a E1.25 cash payment, followed by 4 cent per share a year and a day after the offer becomes wholly conditional, or 7 cent per share in three years' time.

"The issuing of a 2.5 document at this stage in negotiations is par for the course," spokesman said.

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"We fully expect to issue a copy of the full deal in four weeks as is usual in such deals."

However, the deal could be upset by Denis O’ Brien’s eIsland consortium which has accused the Eircom board of"heel dragging" and failing in its duty to shareholders following this weekends rejection of eIsland’s bid for the company.

According to reports in The Irish Times, this morning, the consortium said it haswrittento the board seeking a full explanation why its proposed offer would not be put to Eircom shareholders.

This follows a statement by Eircom over the weekend that the directors of Eircom believed that the eIsland offer was "undeveloped."

The statement reads: "The Board of eircom met today, following nearly three weeks of extensive negotiations with Valentia Telecommunications Limited ("Valentia"), to consider the finalised terms of an offer by Goldman Sachs International on behalf of Valentia for eircom plc.

"The Board also considered eIsland’s latest outline proposal to acquire eircom. It is the Board of eircom’s view that the e Island proposal is not yet sufficiently developed to be capable of being put to shareholders.

"The Independent Directors of eircom consider that Valentia’s finalised proposal should be put to eircom shareholders. . ."