Telephone giants Cable & Wireless have put their Hamilton city centre office block up for grabs in a multi-million dollar sell-off.

The Reid Street building -- Hamilton home to C&W since 1967 -- was officially put on the market yesterday.

The move is understood to have been partly forced by cost considerations and staff cuts, which has left parts of the current premises empty.

And -- based on current property prices -- the building could be expected, depending on demand, to go for a figure somewhere between $2.5 million and $5 million.

A spokesman for the firm said the offices were up for sale to allow the firm to concentrate all its staff on the Devonshire site which is currently home to the engineering part of the firm.

He said: "We have always separated the operations side and the administrative, marketing and financial sides.

"This building is quite old and is not really suitable for our purposes.'' And he admitted C&W -- which is facing competition in the overseas calls market for the first time and which has axed 26 staff -- would find it cheaper to move.

He said: "I don't know what the cost-related facts are, but we've certainly been advised to consolidate our operations.

"Undoubtedly, it will be cheaper -- rather than operating two different places, we will be operating one.'' And he added: "It's also inconvenient when we want to have meetings, people have to trek up there or other people have to trek down here.'' The advertisement -- placed by Rego Realtors -- said the building "occupies a prime site'' opposite City Hall.

The office offers 15,000 square feet of office space and off-site parking. It comes complete with a generator for emergency use.

Neither the spokesman for the real estate firm nor C&W would comment on how much the building could go for.

But the real estate spokesman said: "We have had serious inquiries -- I'm not at liberty to say who from, but they are serious.

"It's a great location -- I'm not aware of any offers coming in, but there are a few parties looking at it.'' C&W has lost a considerable share of its monopoly market after Government threw open the overseas calls business to newcomers.

TeleBermuda International now offers an overseas phone service in competition with C&W.