Sunday Independent (Ireland)

Eir’s French owner sees share price fall almost 60pc

- Fearghal O’Connor

THE key French shareholde­r of Ireland’s biggest telecommun­ications company, Eir, has seen its share price fall sharply in recent weeks.

Iliad, the telecoms player led by French billionair­e Xavier Niel, has experience­d a share price fall of more than 25pc since the beginning of 2019.

But the fall has been even steeper —almost 60pc — since the giant French company took over Ireland’s former state telecoms company in April 2018.

Niel is a major player in the French, Swiss and Italian markets, and his NJJ Telecom Europe and French telecommun­ications company Iliad jointly become the ninth owner of Eir in as many years. That deal, completed last April, placed a €3.5bn enterprise value on the Eir business.

At the time, Iliad’s share price was flying high above the €200 mark on the back of its disruptive entry into several European telecoms markets. But by close of business on Friday the share price of the company had fallen to €87.90.

Much of that fall has come in the last number of weeks. Iliad began 2019 with a share price above €120.

But with the recovery expected by analysts in the company’s overall performanc­e proving slow to materialis­e, it is now at its lowest share price level since 2012.

The poor market performanc­e has largely been driven by a contractio­n of domestic revenue in its home market of France as it lost mobile phone and broadband customers to competitor­s. Last year the company launched a major expansion into the Italian market where its performanc­e has been stronger than at home.

In Ireland, the company was not slow to implement the changes at Eir, launching a major cost-cutting plan soon after its arrival that saw the departure of hundreds of staff and a reorganisa­tion of its top management team. Soon after the acquisitio­n, Eir’s new chief executive, Carolan Lennon, pledged that the company would build the “best fixed and mobile network in Ireland”.

That drive continued last week with the announceme­nt by the company that it would cover 75pc of all Irish homes and businesses with fibre broadband directly into dwellings and offices as part of a new €500m plan to connect an extra 1.4 million homes over the next five years.

The company previously committed to delivering 335,000 fibre-tothe-home broadband connection­s that Lennon said last week would be complete by June.

That earlier interventi­on has reduced the number of homes available to the consortium who are the likely eventual winners of the Government’s ongoing National Broadband Plan tendering process, and last week’s announceme­nt — along with one by Imagine Broadband — could take further homes out of the NBP pool.

 ??  ?? Carolan Lennon, CEO of Eir has vowed to build ‘the best fixed and mobile network in Ireland.’ Photo: Steve Humphreys
Carolan Lennon, CEO of Eir has vowed to build ‘the best fixed and mobile network in Ireland.’ Photo: Steve Humphreys

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