eircom IPO oversubscribed

Ireland’s biggest telco eircom has said that it raised around EUR300 billion in yesterday’s IPO, selling shares at EUR1.55 apiece as it returned to the Irish stock market after a three year hiatus. The offering valued the company at EUR1.5 billion and saw investors including chairman Tony O’Reilly, Soros Private Equity and Goldman Sachs Group each sell the majority of the stakes they had bought in the telco in its 2001 IPO. Irish institutions including Bank of Ireland Asset Management, AIB Investment Managers, Irish Life Investment Managers, Hibernian Investment Managers and Pioneer Investment are believed to have acquired around a fifth of the shares between them. Sources say that the IPO attracted a high level of interest and that the shares could have been sold twice over.