Babcock & Brown 'not selling' Eircom

Babcock & Brown has no immediate plans to sell Irish phone company Eircom as it disposes of assets to assuage creditors after…

Babcock & Brown has no immediate plans to sell Irish phone company Eircom as it disposes of assets to assuage creditors after a 53 per cent stock slump last week.

"We holding on to the asset for the medium term," said Erica Borgelt, a spokeswoman for Babcock in Sydney. "We are not selling at the moment and it's business as usual at Eircom."

The Sunday Tribune in Dublin yesterday reported that there was a more than 50 per cent chance that Eircom, Ireland's largest phone company, would be sold within a year.

A sale would mark the fifth change of ownership for the former state-owned company
since 1999, including two spells as a publicly traded company.

Babcock, Australia's second-biggest securities firm, said earlier today it will get offers for European wind farms this week and that it remains on schedule to sell assets including the Enersis business in Portugal in the third quarter.

Chief Executive Officer Phil Green is in talks with bankers after last week's slump pushed Babcock's market value below A$2.5 billion.

Banks will have the right to force the Sydney-based company to pay back debt early or sell assets if it remains below that level at the end of a four-month review period.