It was certainly not for want of money that Brian Thompson agreed to become chairman of Telecom Eireann. When Mr Thompson announced in November that he would step down as vice-chairman of Qwest Communications International, he was armed with more than $80 million (€69 million) in Qwest stock.

Last June, Qwest, a fibre-optic, long distance carrier, paid $4.4 billion for LCI International Inc, the company Mr Thompson as chairman and chief executive officer had built up from the brink of bankruptcy. During Mr Thompson's time at LCI, its turnover increased from $220 million in 1991 to $1.6 billion in 1997, making LCI the sixth largest long distance phone company in the US. At the time of the buy-out LCI had more than two million business and residential customers and a 4,500-mile fibre-optic network.

Mr Thompson left Qwest in December, although apparently reluctantly. It was reported he initially opposed the merger with Qwest, but thought LCI's 4,000 employees would fare better under new ownership. From LCI's offices in Virginia, he tried to work with Qwest's CEO, Mr Joseph Nacchio, a former AT &T veteran, who ran the company from Denver, Colorado.

There seemed to be a "power struggle" at Qwest, said Michele Wolf, assistant director of equity research at Bear, Stearns in New York. "Joe Nacchio is a dominant personality and Brian Thompson used to be in the CEO role. He needed to be running something himself."

"I think he's very good. He's a very cool character," said Ms Wolf. "When he and his team were at LCI, they were my favourite management team and my best pick." She believes he will bring a "competitive mindset" to his new role at Telecom Eireann, adding: "I think he'll do a great job".

"He's a very well regarded executive who trained at MCI Communications, the great success story of the 1980s," said Mr Simon Flannery of J.P. Morgan Securities in New York. "He left there to take over LCI, a rapidly growing company. He's regarded as one of the smartest guys in the business who will be a good addition to the management team at Telecom Eireann."

Mr Flannery expects Mr Thompson's focus to be on results. "He's a good manager who gets the best out of his people," he said.

"I bet he'll make Telecom Eireann a whole lot more aggressive," said Mr Stephen Wing, research analyst at American Fronteer, a broker/dealer company in Denver, situated across the road from Qwest's headquarters. "From an entrepreneurial point of view, Qwest is an entirely different company from a government-regulated, monopolistic telephone company. Qwest is all about getting market share and there's only one word for it - band-width."

Once its fibre-optic backbone is in place, Mr Wing said, it'll build out its network across the US. Qwest, he said, is expected to show a small profit for the fourth quarter of 1998, following its LCI acquisition. "Mr Thompson, I'm sure, will add an entrepreneurial flavour to Telecom Eireann," Mr Wing said.

Mr Thompson (59) from Buffalo, New York, is a chemical engineer who holds a MBA from Harvard University. In 1960, he joined the Navy and was accepted into flight school. In an interview with the Denver Busi- ness Journal last month, though, he said he changed his mind about flying after two of his friends were killed in aircraft carrier accidents. Instead, he became a US Navy underwater bomb disposal expert. He was quoted as saying: "I didn't want to fly because it was too dangerous, so I went into bomb disposal!"

Later in the same decade, he became a management consultant in the Washington D.C. offices of McKinsey & Co where he specialised in telecommunications. He joined MCI as executive vice-president in 1981 with responsibility for the company's eight operating divisions. He left in 1990 to consult with the venture capital firm, E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Co which had a large equity stake in LCI.

LCI sales, which peaked at $260 million in 1990, had fallen 15 per cent by mid-1991 and the company was debt-laden with high-yield junk bonds.

According to a separate profile last March in the Denver Post, Qwest's hometown newspaper, Mr Thompson persuaded Warburg to invest an additional $37 million, lay off 25 per cent of the workforce and sell off peripheral businesses dealing with video-conferencing. He also recruited nine MCI managers to help him run the business.

Under his direction, LCI became the first phone company to offer a flat rate for each call regardless of how far the call was being transmitted. It also started to bill customers in six-second increments, instead of by the minute. Mr Thompson began to appear in the company's television advertisements, selling the company's "fair" service.

Mr Thompson serves on the boards of Bell Canada, Microdyne Corp and Golden Books Family Entertainment. He remains CEO of Universal Telecommunications, a small privately-held holding company he ran from home after leaving MCI. Through Universal, Mr Thompson manages stakes in several telecom start-ups he has helped fund. He also has a partnership with racing mogul, Roger Penske, that invests in automotive and telecom projects. The two met when LCI sponsored a car race five years ago.

He co-chairs the Global Information Infrastructure Commission, a group of more than 40 telecom leaders around the world and last year he served as chairman of the Government's Telecommunications Advisory Committee through which he met the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke.

Now, his two decades of exposure to the US telecommunications business and American perspective, will be brought to the Irish scene as the Government prepares to sell off 35 per cent of Telecom Eireann.

Following deregulation of the phone industry in Europe, other, bigger, telecommunications carriers have privatised and carried out initial public offerings in the US. It is likely Telecom will follow that route and could seek a listing on the New York Stock Exchange as early as June.

Mr Thompson said recently that potential US investors will peruse company finance and look closely at the Telecom board and management.

There will be investment interest in the US, only if there's a growth story, said Mr Wing. "It has to be more than just an Irish phone company. These days, telecom services are getting bundled and it'll need to be aggressive enough to branch into connectivity, virtual private networks, hosting and e-commerce services. If it takes advantage of these opportunities and shows that to investors, the company could do well on the New York Stock Exchange," he said.

Mr Martin Teevan, first vice-president of trading at Robb, Peck & McCooey Clearing Corp on Wall Street believes investors would be receptive to a public offering by Telecom Eireann. "They would definitely be positive," he said.

"There is big interest in telephone and Internet companies at the moment and a scramble for telephone stocks." He attributed that to prospects for phone companies to move into cable and telephony integration.