Electronic equipment originally worth €90 million will be sold off today in a firesale of the assets of Worldport, one of several internet data centres in Dublin to go out of business recently.
This is the latest in a spate of tenders of telecom assets following the downturn in the sector, which has cost thousands of jobs but also offered opportunities to entrepreneurs and risk takers.
About 1,300 items at Worldport's centre are being sold by auctioneers Hopkins McKay, and are expected to raise a fraction of the initial €90 million outlay. The items include two power generators, powerful computer systems and fittings at the state-of-the-art data centre.
About 600 people attended a viewing at Worldport's Dublin centre last week with most interest expressed by overseas buyers, according to Hopkins.
But Irish entrepreneurs are also taking advantage of the collapse in the telecoms market, making bids for assets which have lost up to 90 per cent of their value.
Mr Sean Melly, chief executive of eTel - a telecoms service provider in central and eastern Europe - yesterday made his fourth multimillion euro acquisition in the Austrian market and is stalking the assets of the bankrupt telecoms firm KPNQwest.
"Our ability to identify, negotiate and acquire complementary telecoms firms is helping us grow," said Mr Melly yesterday "After the acquisition of Telefónica's Austrian business we are now the second telecoms provider in the country."
ETel has made four acquisitions in Austria within a year and claims revenues of €70 million in the market, where it had little presence until it acquired RSL Austria in 2001.
Mr Melly also confirmed yesterday eTel is stalking the central Europe operations of KPNQwest, an operation he first attempted to acquire in 2001 when it was owned by GTS.
KPNQwest paid €200 million for the business less than a year ago but the operations were likely to be sold for less than €50 million, he said.
Mr Melly acknowledges that funding is the key to telecoms businesses and will not assume debt to complete a transaction.
"They [our investors] are all very excited about the number of acquisitions we are making and are willing to fund other large acquisitions as required," he said.
