Ownership of the core of the Republic's telecommunications infrastructure looks set to change hands for the third time in five years. No decision has been taken, but a return to the stock market by Eircom now seems certain, possibly as soon as the spring.
Yesterday saw the company take another step in this direction when it sought the approval of its bond holders for such a move.
If the previous transactions are any guide most of the public's interest will focus on who is making and who is losing money. And once again a great deal of money is involved. This time round Eircom is expected to be valued at around €1 billion more than the €3 billion Valentia Holdings - its current owners - paid for it at the turn of 2001.
The consortium's profits will doubtless cause outrage amongst the 450,000 or so small investors who participated in the Government's initial privatisation of Telecom Éireann in mid 1999, before being forced to sell out at a loss to Valentia. The pain of the retail shareholders will be highlighted by the gains of the members of the Eircom Share Ownership Trust, which participated in the Valentia consortium. They are set for another pay day.
While these issues will almost certainly dominate the coverage of the mooted flotation they are not the most important. The real lesson of the Eircom saga is the need to take into account the consequences for the economy as a whole of who owns Eircom and the regulatory regime under which it operates.
The initial flotation and subsequent sale to private investors of Eircom has not been a success from the point of view of the development of the Republic's telecommunications infrastructure, one of the key planks of this small open economy's competitive base.
In particular the short-term thinking that dominated the approach of the venture capitalists behind Valentia has not always served the economy well. Public dissatisfaction with Eircom is running high after the recent announcement of another increase in line rental charges and Ireland lags behind its rivals in the provision of high speed internet connections. Not all of this can be blamed on Eircom, of course, with questions too about Government policy and the role of the telecoms regulator.
From this perspective a return - via another stockmarket flotation - to ownership by long-term investors may be a positive move. The interests of the institutional investors expected to buy Eircom, while still divergent, are far more closely aligned to that of the wider constituency than those of Valentia's venture capitalists backers. For this reason, if no other, the re-flotation of Eircom is to be given a cautious welcome.