One sure thing about Eircom

Eircom's great closing down sale is back on. Everything must go it appears, with eIsland shaping up to grab the bits left behind by Vodafone.

Eircom can still walk away from the Eircell/Vodafone deal if the price falls below the magical £2.20 sterling, which it has already done. And nothing has yet been formally agreed with Denis O'Brien and his crew who want to scour the books for the good and the bad news.

If anyone believes Eircom will voluntarily walk away from Vodafone, there is hope yet for leprechauns. And the one thing Mr O'Brien and his consortium will not find in the books is any reason to raise their offer.

So whatever happens the company, its executives and their contentious stock options, one thing is sure - the investors who ploughed #3.90 a share into the company on flotation will not see their money back.

Insecure Davos finds pulling power fade

As the great and the good gathered in Davos, Switzerland, recently, networking was uppermost on their minds. Little did they realise the sort of information exchange going on behind their backs.

It appears a security breach at the group organising the event resulted in computer hackers getting details on many of the political and business leaders attending the elite gathering. Worse still, the intruders apparently got hold of delegates' credit card details. A main selling point of the event has been its informality. But the ever-increasing security in the face of protests - this year the primary image of the gathering was of gun-toting policemen and barbed wire - has already deterred some from attending future events.

What the chances are of persuading guests such as Bill Gates, George Bush and Tony Blair to return if there is a risk of their most personal data going AWOL is anyone's guess. On the other hand, if the already tight security becomes an oppressive cyberstockade, the event may lose more of its lustre.

Stock exchange move limits investor options

So much for customer care and transparency. The Irish Stock Exchange this week moved to shorten the time between the buying and selling of shares and the settlement of the deal. Where investors used to have five days to get their shares certificates in or pay their money, depending on which side of the deal they were on, they now have three. Next year, it will be down to one on current plans.

In effect, this heralds the end for paper certificates and investors will increasingly have to move to electronic dealing - either through broker nominee accounts or personal accounts.

On the one hand you lose direct control of your investment and are no longer listed as the beneficial owner. All dealings and/or information come through your broker - and you are tied to that one broker. On the other hand . . . there is no other hand, as it appears no broker is offering CREST accounts.

They blame the short notice from the stock exchange but, with settlement periods shortening in markets around the world for six years, that sounds a bit rich. Could it be they hope to shepherd everyone into nominee accounts where inertia will ensure they stay, paying over their annual management charges and whatever dealing fees the broker cares to set?

Practice unlikely to impress shareholders

Everyone is by now familiar with the notion of stock options even if, for many of us, they are a feature of working life for the select few. But what about reversible stock options?

This novel approach to employee retention has come to the fore in the recent dot.com crash. Companies allowed executives who had exercised options earlier in the year to walk away from them later and pretend the option had never been exercised. The executives had complained that taxes owed on the options would exceed what they were worth at the end of the year. Now the US Securities and Exchange Commission has insisted the companies inform shareholders of the practice. That's unwelcome news to the companies concerned, whose investors will hardly be impressed to learn of the executives' faith in the future of such enterprises. Come to think of it, I don't suppose those employees who failed to recant on their options and paid the price will be too happy either.

Customer service takes back seat to profits

NatWest was taken to task in some quarters this week when it was alleged the bank was pressurising staff to offer customers only the poorest yielding savings accounts. According to the reports, staff were told they and their branches would be penalised on bonuses calculations if they dared to suggest to customers that they put their money into either of its higher paying savings options.

It would be nice to say such a story rang hollow, but given that banks' idea of customer service increasingly seems to amount to fewer options with higher profit margins, you never can tell. Customers of NatWest-owner Royal Bank of Scotland's Irish operation - Ulster Bank - might like to know.

Dominic Coyle can be contacted at dcoyle@irish-times.ie