THE HIGH COURT has approved a five-year restructuring scheme for Eircom which sees the group exit examinership on 11 June.

The companies involved are Eircom Ltd, Meteor Mobile Communications, and Irish Telecommunications Investments Ltd.

Under the approved restructuring scheme, group debts will be cut by 40 per cent to €2.3 billion.

The group’s senior lenders will also become its shareholders, while ST Telemedia and the Employee Share Ownership Trust will no longer be shareholders.

The Irish Times reports that the judge today noted that no objections were voiced at today’s hearing against the restructuring scheme.

Some lenders will lose all of their money, but the judge noted that the unsecured creditors who will not be paid under the scheme would also not have received payments if the company had been liquidated.

Internal Eircom correspondence from management seen by TheJournal.ie thanked staff, customers, partners and suppliers for their “patience and loyalty” during the examinership and restructuring process.

CEO Paul Donovan wrote that the group had entered the examinership process “with the objectives of significantly reducing debt levels and placing the company’s balance sheet on a stable financial footing for the medium to long term.”

“These objectives have now been achieved,” he added.

Some 1,000 of Eircom’s 6,000 jobs are being cut through voluntary redundancy over the coming years, though the court heard that the restructuring scheme means that there will be no further job losses.