Eircom has been busy with its plans to rebrand itself, judging by the long list of business names it has registered here since mid-June. Ireland's biggest telco has registered some 50 names over the past 10 weeks or so, giving some indication of its thinking in relation to branding.

Eirmobile, Eirbusiness, Eirstore, Eirnetworks, Eircare, Eirwholesale, Eirphonebook, EirTV and Eirbroadband are just a sample of some of the names registered by the company lately. Openeir and It’s Easy are two of the less obvious names on the list.

Some of this is down to “good housekeeping”, according to a source, but some of it would seem to relate to the rebranding.

Eircom was adopted as the new brand for Telecom Éireann in 1999, around the time of its stock market IPO by the State.

It’s now considered to be a tired brand, with negative associations with the company’s troubles since privatisation – endless changes of ownership, a lack of investment in its infrastructure, huge debts run up, and constant restructuring, culminating in an examinership process in 2012.

Eircom post examinership has been busily positioning itself as a company investing heavily in its future, with cutting edge technology and a range of products capable to taking on an ever-growing list of competitors.

Its private equity owners considered a €3.5 billion IPO around this time last year, but pulled the planned flotation late in the process.

Liquidity event

Nonetheless, there’s little doubt that he company is still being readied by them for some sort of liquidity event in the near term.

A rebrand fits neatly with this strategy. Eircom will publish its fourth quarter and full year results today, and while it won’t reveal its new identity, we can expect some details on its plans.