Winning Eircom consortium ready to play for big money

These telcos don't come cheap you know...

The sale of Irish telco Eircom to the Valentia consortium, backed by entrepreneur Sir Tony O'Reilly, will be made possible by a E2.4bn (£1.5bn) leveraged buy out (LBO) facility. Valentia needs to raise the funds - predominantly from large banks - to purchase the telco following a bitter fight with a rival group. Although LBOs are increasingly rare at the moment because of their risk they are one of the ways for smaller groupings to make a play for larger businesses such as former state telcos.