Reuters: Bankruptcy News: Hutchison Whampoa makes revised bid for eircom - sources

Reuters: Bankruptcy News Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Hutchison Whampoa makes revised bid for eircom - sources May 9th 2012, 18:40 DUBLIN | Wed May 9, 2012 2:40pm EDT DUBLIN May 9 (Reuters) - Hutchison Whampoa Ltd has made a revised 2 billion euros ($2.6 billion) bid for eircom, the Irish phone company granted court protection from creditors six weeks ago, according to sources familiar with the deal. Hutchison, the parent company of 3 Mobile, amended its offer after the court-appointed examiner overseeing Eircom's reorganization rejected an initial bid over the conditionality attached to it. A tweaked bid, with some technical adjustments and no conditions, has been resubmitted, but it is still subject to due diligence said a source. Eircom was granted court protection from creditors at the end of March to allow it to restructure 3.75 billion euros ($5 billion) of debt, the largest examinership granted in Irish corporate history. The application followed eircom's agreement to support a proposal under which most senior lenders take control of the company from current majority shareholder Singapore Technologies Telemedia (STT) and cut its debt pile by 40 to 50 percent. The examiner, Michael McAteer of Grant Thornton, is due to make a decision within the next week. Hutchison, controlled by Asia's richest man Li Ka-shing, has been steadily buying European businesses. In February, it bought Orange Austria from France's Telecom and a private equity fund in a deal valued at $1.3 billion euros including debt. It derived 42 percent of its 2011 revenues totalling HK$387.7 billion ($50 billion) from Europe. Out of total revenues, its 3 Group telecom business in Europe contributed 15 percent. Hutchison has wireless operations in Ireland and a deal would help the Hong Kong company to consolidate its operations there. Three Ireland declined to comment and Grant Thornton's Michael McAteer was not immediately available for comment. (Reporting by Lorraine Turner and Padraic Halpin; Editing by Tim Dobbyn) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions