A group of former executives of the collapsed Australian investment bank Babcock Brown, on Thursday announced a A$175 million (€95 million) cash offer for the fund that owns Irish telco Eircom. The group warned that Eircom might default on its debts.

Babcock Brown bid €2.4 billion for Eircom in 2006 and the telco has about  €3.8 billion in outstanding debt.

The Australian takeover vehicle called TaemasBridge, is led by former Babcock executive and financier Rob Topfer, who headed the takeover of Eircom.

It proposes to delist the fund Babcock Brown Capital Ltd (BCM), which owns Eircom and the Israeli Golden Pages, restructure its debt and possibly introduce compulsory redundancies.

According to its proposal, TaemasBridge said it would use “the looming default to extract concessions from debt holders”. It also plans to take $5 million in fees from Eircom annually. If successful, this would be Eircom’s fifth change of ownership in the past decade.

In a statement, Eircom said: “Eircom does not support the TaemasBridge proposal and believes it is damaging to Eircom’s interests and its future.”.

“The model that Eircom has experienced since 2006 has failed the company, its employees and its investors, and has seriously damaged its credibility. The interests of Eircom and its stakeholders are absent from TaemasBridge and lessons have not been learned.”

BCM said it was “evaluating the proposal” in addition to “a number of other proposals” that it has received as part of a strategic review aimed at “maximising shareholder value”. It said it would provide a “comprehensive strategic update” to shareholders on April 27th. BCM owns 57% of Eircom, while Babcock Brown holds 7.9%. An employee share ownership trust (Esot) owns 35%.