Eircom's on the telly!!

wind00ze

Hey guys, RTE 1 tonight @ 7:30 programme about the Eircom share scandal back in '99. Should be interesting. Lets have a competition and see who can count the most lies!!

Sparky

ah yes, seen an ad on that last night, Were you scammed?

paulm17781

I'm so sick of people saying they were scammed.

At the time, tech stocks were over inflated.
Anyone who knew anything about Eircon knew they were a bad company. Anyone who didn't shouldn't have bought shares.

My parents lost quite a bit of cash on those shares. I have no sympathy and their only regret is not listening to what I said about Eircon.

People say it was a scam because they lost money. Perhaps they learned a harsh lesson about investment and not to hop on the bandwagon without doing a little research first.

My 2C.

kaizersoze

Totally agree paulm17781.
People thought it was a sure thing and didn't take into consideration the risks involved in the stock market. You can be sure the experienced investors didn't loose money.
The only thing I found wrong was the way it was over-hyped at the time, mainly by the government of the day.

Sponge Bob

20% of investors sold out early and at a profit .

jhegarty

share can go down as well as up.....

psicic

I think that’s the nub of the problem – the government touted these as a ‘sound’ investment along the lines of state bonds. If you thought about it logically, they were shares and nothing more, but given the load of hype at the time, many people – including my business studies teacher who was a shrewd man – were convinced these shares were something special. State guaranteed, almost.

TeleE / eircom was a company with lots of profit potential. There was so much on the horizon and the public were promised that a privatised management would be able to capitalise. Let’s not even delve into the whole spate of reasons the politicos would give why a takeover bid wouldn’t happen until such a time as it was advantageous to the general public.

So, in my opinion, people feel ripped off by the hard-sell hype undertaken by the government at the time – especially with how they made the investment in shares seem like a long-term one. I don’t think this feeling of being hard-done-by is without just cause.

Happily, I wasn't stung

lucernarian

My dad was lucky enough in hindsight to sell up a few weeks after he bought them and made a profit. He only didn't want to "take any chances" with them at the time.

While it's true that shares are full of risk etc. the government should have priced the shares at a more cautious level. I think it's ok to target the general in an IPO privatisation. It's ok to try to get the most money at the time of sale. I don't think its ok to do both. Mary O' Rourke et al knew the general public were not experienced when it comes to the stock market.

paulm17781

I would consider my Dad a pretty wise investor. I think the hype got to him too. Don't get me wrong, I think it is awful that people lost money. I still stand by what I said though, those who think they were 'scammed' have no one to blame but themselves.

Sarsfield

I made over 20% on my Eircom investment

It must also be remembered that the Government was selling Eircom on behalf of the Irish taxpayer and had an obligation to maximise what it got. Possibly a conflict of interest there as the taxpayer was also an investor (but they made a packet out of the institutional investors too).

Now, the wisdom of selling in the first place, and the value we got from the revenue (the revenue from the sale going towards extra hospitals, schools, Gardai etc.) is something that could be debated I'm sure.

netwhizkid

Mary O'Rourke had some neck! I hope she gets the equivalent of electoral Jihad next year.

Most of Irelands telco problems are directly related to her and her cronies (FF/Pds Traitors) selling Eircom into the hands of (vulture capitalists as scannall described it) After watching it I took no pity on the 600,000 people (including myself and my family) that were screwed after all they came along and licked the governments a*se in 2002 as if it was dripping money after they being screwed by those corrupt criminal politicians what Muppet's!, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me! This was is the main reason I hate this government to the bone and would love nothing more than to see every FF/Pds politician jailed. It is not nice to see ones family reduced from riches to rags by this government which happened to my family over the Eircom debacle. We lost thousands and only over the last two years have our finances properly recovered. They conned the people with ads as highlighted that were nothing short of Brainwashing. (The Nazi party could learn a thing or two from that campaign if they were around today) I cried when Michael Noonan did not become Taoiseach (He had promised to refund the money) On a non-personal note just look at what money they took in and the way Eircom was decimated to the skeletal service we get today. (anyone fail a BB test lately, I have being failing it for 3yrs now) If all that money was re-invested we'd all have FTTH now and maybe a 10mbs BB connection, well I can dream!

This government really should burn at the stake for what they done! Corruption just doesnt cut it, It was thieving of the lowest order.

dahamsta

It wasn't a scam at all. It was simply a Government taking advantage of the people they're supposed to protect, with lies and deceit.

adam

Blaster99

It's a pity the IPO price wasn't set higher so we would have gotten more value out of the sale. It is the government's job to maximise the return after all.

paulm17781

netwhizkid wrote:

If all that money was re-invested we'd all have FTTH now and maybe a 10mbs BB connection, well I can dream!

No we wouldn't. One of the reasons I knew it was a bad buy is because I knew Eircon had no intention of investing. I already knew at that stage that thier goal was to maximise profit with minimal investment. Don't hate the government because you threw money at a bad offer, hate yourself.

kaizersoze

netwhizkid wrote:

I cried when Michael Noonan did not become Taoiseach (He had promised to refund the money)

LOL. Like fcuk he would. Please don't tell me you believed that???

i57dwun4yb1pt8

I think I WILL safely continue hating this disgusting excuse for a government , these mothers should all be taken out and hung for the way they treat the irish people.

ardmacha

While tech stocks were overrated, the real ripoff with Eircom was that they sold off Eircell for a song. Vodafone Ireland is now one of the most profitable parts of the Vodafone group. It could have fetched a significant higher price or Eircom could just have kept it, as they have a mobile arm now that they have bought Meteor.

MunsterCycling

ardmacha wrote:

While tech stocks were overrated, the real ripoff with Eircom was that they sold off Eircell for a song. Vodafone Ireland is now one of the most profitable parts of the Vodafone group. It could have fetched a significant higher price or Eircom could just have kept it, as they have a mobile arm now that they have bought Meteor.

I think that if you look back they had to sell EIRCELL as the competition authority didn't want such a big player in private hands and Digifone were not as strong as they have become, dodgy licence agreements inc.:rolleyes:

irlrobins

netwhizkid wrote:

It is not nice to see ones family reduced from riches to rags by this government which happened to my family over the Eircom debacle.

Slight exaggeration there surely? Unless your family invested every penny they had in one stock you wouldn't have been hurt too badly. And if they did invest all they had in one stock, well more fool them.

DublinWriter

It was a brilliant Thatcheristic con-job to sell back to the people what they already owned.

...even worse again was Enda Kenny's comment a few years back about FG compensating the shareholders if he ever got into power.

prospect

paulm17781 wrote:

I'm so sick of people saying they were scammed.

At the time, tech stocks were over inflated.
Anyone who knew anything about Eircon knew they were a bad company. Anyone who didn't shouldn't have bought shares.

My parents lost quite a bit of cash on those shares. I have no sympathy and their only regret is not listening to what I said about Eircon.

People say it was a scam because they lost money. Perhaps they learned a harsh lesson about investment and not to hop on the bandwagon without doing a little research first.

My 2C.

I got stung on this, but I wouldn't say scammed.

Most people are taking issue with the fact that they were grossly mislead by the government of the day, who basically guaranteed (not literally) that investors would make money.

But as you correctly said, lesson learned.

blocparty

i didnt read all the comments about this but if people did any bit of research they would have known it was a risky stock. i was only 13 at the time and i knew it was risky. i have a massive interest in stocks and shares etc.

my point is is that the telecommunications industry was opened up just before eircom going public which meant all previous profits made would not be accurate to future profits.

if a company operating in a monopolistic market stucture finds itself in a new market with multiple competitors then the whole thing is likely to fall apart unless radical changes are made to streamline the company and make it so that the company is fully competive with any new company that comes into the market.

well theres my thoughts on the matter. you cant put money blindly into a company. the share price was set too high for a kick off as well

dahamsta

blocparty wrote:

i didnt read all the comments about this but if people did any bit of research they would have known it was a risky stock.

And if the goverment was honest, they wouldn't have cheerled it. The fact that it's a risky stock is a factor, certainly, but the simple fact of the matter is that the goverment was dishonest about it. Doubly so because they had better information than anyone most when it came to the internal workings and financials involved.

adam

jor el

I know people that took out loans from the bank to buy Eircom stock at the time, as they thought that by the time they pay the loan back, the stock would be worth three or four times what they paid. Lesson learned there I'd imagine.

What I hated at the time, and I did by £250 worth of stock as that's all I had and made a small loss when I eventually sold them, was that as a state owned company, everyone in Ireland should have been given shares in it. Then of course they set the price at almost the highest value they could, just to screw you a bit more.

Anyway, did anyone see that program and was it any good?


I always liked this picture, now I have a chance to use it.

t5pwr

I made a profit on the shares

blocparty

Ken Shabby wrote:

And if the goverment was honest, they wouldn't have cheerled it. The fact that it's a risky stock is a factor, certainly, but the simple fact of the matter is that the goverment was dishonest about it. Doubly so because they had better information than anyone most when it came to the internal workings and financials involved.

adam

well i was unaware of the government pushing the stock and making it sound better after all i was thirteen at the time.

what did ye think of FG plans to reimburse those people that lost money as part of their election campaign a few years back? i thought it was stupid

lucernarian

blocparty wrote:

well i was unaware of the government pushing the stock and making it sound better after all i was thirteen at the time.

what did ye think of FG plans to reimburse those people that lost money as part of their election campaign a few years back? i thought it was stupid

I was even younger than that and I can remember the ads by TÉ asking people to "take part in our future" etc. IIRC. I also remember an ad with lots of people holding candles or something

There was lots of glitz and glamour about the launch, far too much in hindsight. I didn't lose out on the floatation directly, though I think the government mislead the public at worst and took a risk with the IPO price at best.

dahamsta

blocparty wrote:

well i was unaware of the government pushing the stock and making it sound better after all i was thirteen at the time.

What was it you said about people doing "any bit of research"?

what did ye think of FG plans to reimburse those people that lost money as part of their election campaign a few years back? i thought it was stupid

What has this got to do with the mishandling of the flotation?

adam

Sponge Bob

To_be_confirmed wrote:

I also remember an ad with lots of people holding candles or something

U sure that was not a Coca Cola ad ????

lucernarian

Sponge Bob wrote:

U sure that was not a Coca Cola ad ????

Hmmm... I know there was an ad, kinda dark background with banners and candles and stuff I think. It finished with a telecom éireann banner. My memory's a bit sketchy about it as you can see:p

Not that it matters but I can remember other stuff aswell... The big ceremony Mary O'Rourke had on the day of the flotation.