Eircom chief executive Dr Phil Nolan has insisted that the collapse of Swisscom's efforts to acquire the Irish telco has not diverted its management from their core strategy.
While most market observers and many within Eircom believe the company remains in play after the breakdown of talks with Swisscom, Dr Nolan said Eircom retained its momentum and continued to deliver on its on its key objectives.
Eircom was seen as a willing seller after it granted exclusive access to its books to Swisscom, which indicated it might table a bid of "a tad above" €2.40 per share share.
The failure of the approach has already been priced into Eircom's stock, which closed unchanged last night at €1.94.
Dr Nolan issued his statement last night after Swisscom confirmed that it had broken off the talks following an intervention from the Swiss government, its controlling shareholder.
"Under the circumstances Swisscom sees no possibility of a takeover bid," it said.
The decision was widely anticipated after the government said on Friday that it had imposed a ban on it acquiring other national phone companies.
Eircom, which made no previous comment on the confusion surrounding the Swisscom approach, said the announcement "clarified the situation" between the company and its 66 per cent shareholder.
"The process with Swisscom has not diverted us from our underlying strategy of providing a full range of telecoms services in the most vibrant economy in Europe," Dr Nolan said.
"We have successfully re-entered the mobile business by acquiring Meteor and have had tremendous shareholder support to fund this move. Our DSL [ broadband] customer base has grown significantly from 100,000 last year to approaching 200,000 by the end of this year."
Davy Stockbrokers analyst Jack Gorman said in a note that the deal was dead.
"This is not a surprise, as any other outcome would have required a massive political about-face by the government."
Foreign diversification had been a big priority for Swisscom, whose chief executive Jens Alder said in media interviews that his own position was "massively" damaged.
However, there will be no resignations from Swisscom's management or board, pending the government's formulation of new objectives for the company.
These will be finalised before the end of the year.
