Danon bids au revoir to Eircom

10-06-2008

by Bryan Collins

Eircom's chairman, Pierre Danon, is stepping down to become chief executive officer of French telecommunications firm Numericable and Completel.

The state's largest telecommunications company has already started a search for Danon's successor and he is to remain in his current position until a new chairman is appointed. Danon has served as chairman of Eircom for the last two years, assuming his role when the group was sold to Australian investment firm Babcock and Brown.

"As chairman, Pierre played an active role in the progress of a number of significant initiatives including broadband rollout, local loop unbundling and next generation networks," said Rex Comb, CEO of Eircom.

"Pierre has been a tremendous asset to Eircom since he took up his position as chairman and we are sorry to see him go. However we wish him well in his new opportunity and thank him most sincerely for his service to the company in the past two years," said Rob Topfer, on behalf of the majority shareholder Babcock and Brown Capital.

When Danon returns to his home country of France, he will head up the provider of France's third largest alternative high speed network. Numericable and Completel provides over 4 million French homes with high definition cable television, video on demand, and high speed internet and telephony services.

For his part Danon is pleased with the progress made at Eircom over the past two years: "We have significantly accelerated the company's investment in the country's infrastructure, supported by a commitment to invest up to EUR1 billion by the end of 2009, taken major steps to open it to additional competition through local loop unbundling," said Danon.

"In the last nine months, revenues have grown by 5 percent and EBITDA by 9 percent, continuing to deliver strong performance for the company's shareholders, including its employees," he added.

However, it has not been all plain sailing for Eircom during DanonÂ’s term as chairman of the company. Recently, the Government told the former state telecoms operator that it will not financially support its high-speed broadband roll-out plan.

Eircom had presented its 'Fibre Ireland' proposal to the Government which would see the provider bring 25MB broadband connections to 70 percent of the country. The plan had required an investment of EUR500 million, EUR150 million of which Eircom wanted from the Government. Eircom is also facing increasing competition in the residential market with Vodafone recently announcing plans to enter the home broadband and phone market.

How a new chairman will deal with the increasing competition and pressure to make high-speed broadband available nationwide remains to be seen.