This is from The Wall Street Urinal. It seems that it is almost Treason to not buy the stock.
It also confirms my original belief that there are lots of beautiful Irish girls that own Telecom Eireann stock.
Dow Jones Newswires -- July 9, 1999
DJ IPO Outlook: Telecom Eireann IPO Rides Celtic Tiger
By Dunstan Prial
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--The roar of the Celtic Tiger was heard clear across the Atlantic Ocean this week.
In a powerful symbol of Ireland's growing economic clout, the country's formerly state-run telecommunications operator, Telecom Eirann PLC (EIR), completed a successful initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange.
"You're on your own now, chum," Ireland's Minister of Public Enterprise Mary O'Rourke playfully chided Telecom Eireann Chief Executive Alfie Kane during a Big Board press conference Thursday.
But far more significant than one more privatization of a European telecommunications concern was the broad impact the offering had on hundreds of thousands of Irish citizens, most of whom had never before owned shares of a publicly traded company.
Government Strove For Broad Distribution Of Shares
Government officials bent over backwards to ensure widespread participation by individual investors in Ireland. Indeed, 55% of 1.1 billion Telecom Eireann shares sold worldwide were put aside for the
retail market. Some 574,000 Irish investors - or more than 20% of the adult population of the country - subsequently bought in to the deal. The government estimates that 60% of those 574,000 are first-time stock owners.
"We set out with that as our goal," Minister O'Rourke said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires. "We wanted them to have a real ownership, a physical ownership. Before this it was more remote. The people haven't had anything like this before. This is a new experience. "
Purchasing shares in the offering became something of a national obsession, the minister added. "It gripped the imagination of the entire country. You could walk down the aisle of any grocery store and
hear people talking about it."
Niall O'Dowd, founding publisher of Irish America Magazine in New York, said his relatives in Ireland were fascinated with the offering.
"It's an interesting phenomenon brought about by the Celtic Tiger," O'Dowd said, referring to Europe's nickname for Ireland's economic resurgence in the last three years. "People are feeling that they want to catch the tiger by the tail."
Telecom Eireann's IPO was at least as significant to the psychology of the Irish people as it was to the country's economy, O'Dowd said. For centuries, Ireland's history has been plagued by famines and economic depressions. Not for nothing have so many Irish immigrated to the U.S., he noted. For those who remained behind, the world of finance as represented by investments in stocks
and bonds remained "very, very far from the experience of the local shopkeeper," he said. That's all changed with the distribution of Telecom Eireann's shares.
Economic circumstances are reversing themselves rapidly as Ireland has come to be recognized as the Silicon Valley of Europe, O'Dowd added, and the Telecom Eireann deal could well mark the high point of the recent economic rebound.
The $4.25 billion raised by the company this week made it the largest IPO this year, surpassing that of Goldman Sachs Inc.'s (GS) $4 billion offering in May. Telecom Eireann will collect about $1 billion more via the IPO through an agreement with one of its strategic partners.
Upon completion of the sale, Telecom Eireann's stock became the third largest share traded in Dublin in terms of market capitalization, behind Allied Irish Banks PLC (AIB) and Bank of Ireland PLC (IRE). It has a weighting of 12% on the ISEQ Overall index, the key barometer of Dublin share price activity.
Successful IPO Needed To Set Example
The Telecom Eireann deal marked a turning point in the traditionally "paternalistic" attitude of the Irish government, noted Minister O'Rourke. "This was a people's project. It was a democratic way in which we engaged the public," she said.
O'Rourke said a successful public sale of Telecom Eireann was needed to set a precedent in Ireland for potential future privatizations of government run entities. She specifically cited Aer Lingus, the
government owned airline, as a possible candidate.
Telecommunications customers stand to benefit from several dynamics currently at work in Ireland that are related to the Telecom Eireann offering, the minister added. First, deregulation in Ireland's telecommunications industry, which led to the Telecom Eireann IPO, has increased competition and improved services while lowering costs, she said. Second, Telecom Eireann is now accountable to its shareholders, many of whom also happen to be customers.
Irish America publisher O'Dowd, however, said the real significance of the deal lay in its symbolism for the Irish people. "There are a half million people in Ireland who now believe in their economy," he said.
===================================================
============================================
|
