Senior official at Irish former monopoly Eircom will meet with a syndicate of lenders in London this Friday to discuss the company’s debt restructuring plans. According to the Irish Independent around a dozen banks and investment funds are involved in the talks which concern approximately EUR3.7 billion (USD5.3 billion) worth of the telco’s ‘most secure loans’. It is understood the meeting has been tabled to allow Eircom executives to present a detailed financial update to senior lenders and to distribute an independent business review compiled by Ernst & Young, including group earning projections which could be key to how much corporate debt should be eliminated through a restructuring. With Eircom’s debt restructuring talks gathering momentum, a separate report from newswire Capital Structure has reported that the operator’s main shareholder, Singapore Technologies Telemedia, has formulated its ‘preferred plan’ to restructure the debt, although it is unclear whether it will present this plan at Friday’s meeting.
Elsewhere, Eircom is moving ahead with its plans to increase efficiencies within the operation. As part of this the telco is re-jigging its wholesale division, including moves to rebrand the unit and to create a full-time sales and service team to deal with wholesale customers. The restructuring will not incur any major costs it says, and the wholesale division will remain part of Eircom – headed up by Chris Hutchings, recently appointed managing director for wholesale.