Irish incumbent Eircom has promoted its CFO Richard Moat to CEO following the exit of Herb Hribar at the end of September.
Moat had been acting as CEO since Hribar’s departure, which came after a strategic review concluding that neither a sale nor an…
Irish incumbent Eircom has promoted its CFO Richard Moat to CEO following the exit of Herb Hribar at the end of September.
Moat had been acting as CEO since Hribar’s departure, which came after a strategic review concluding that neither a sale nor an IPO of Eircom would achieve a high enough valuation for the operator.
Moat joined Eircom as CFO in September 2012. Previously, he was MD of T-Mobile UK before becoming deputy CEO of Everything Everywhere when Deutsche Telekom and Orange formed the joint venture.
Padraig McManus, Eircom’s chairman, said: “As CFO, he has been at the heart of the transformation and rejuvenation of the company over the past two years and he has demonstrated the knowledge, experience and enthusiasm required to lead the company through the next phase of its journey.”
Eircom began its strategic review in April and was pursuing a dual-track process. The board was reported to be focusing more on an IPO due to a lack of interest from private bidders, but decided against it eventually.
Eircom investors would prefer to “continue participating in the upside from the significant network investment made in recent years, which has only recently begun to manifest itself in the company’s operating and financial results”, the company said in late September.
An IPO this year would have come just two years after the group was taken over by its bondholders, which snapped it up from an administration process. That takeover saw US-based private equity firm Blackstone become Eircom’s largest shareholder.
