David Hall

Telecommunication firm, Digicel Jamaica Ltd, yesterday poured cold water on reports in an Irish newspaper that the owners would consider selling the company.

"That is rubbish," said Digicel Jamaica chief executive officer, David Hall. "At the moment we have no plans to sell it."

Denis O'Brien

But last weekend, an Irish newspaper quoted Paul Connolly, a Digicel director saying that "if somebody wanted to buy it we might accept if they gave us a price that we recognised".

It is not known whether anyone has made an offer to the owners - a group of Irish investors who have so far spent over US$500 million to develop the cellular infrastructure and market throughout the Caribbean, since establishing a beach head in Jamaica in 2001.

With over one million subscribers in Jamaica, Digicel has eclipsed its main rival - Cable & Wireless Jamaica - as the largest of the four cellular companies operating in the island.

But Hall said that the company is too far down the developmental curve for any serious contemplation of a sale.

"The company is only three years old and is expanding aggressively in the Caribbean," he noted. "We have a long way to go before we think about that."

Rumours that Digicel's chairman and major shareholder Denis O'Brien was contemplating the sale first surfaced earlier this year - with the speculation being driven by the fact that O'Brien has developed a reputation for buying companies, building them and then sell them.

But in March, O'Brien himself said that there were "no plans to sell" his company.

When those reports persisted, the Business Observer, based in part on the claims of an insider source, in June sought the response of Digicel's Caribbean CEO, Seymus Lynch.

"Absolutely not," responded Lynch.
Yesterday, Hall downplayed the fact that the most recent comments came from a shareholder of the company.

"Whether or not (Paul Connolly) said it, it does not matter," said Hall, himself an Irish man. "Because everything is up for sale, even Buckingham Palace would be up for sale if the price was right."

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