Investors need bank crisis answers, fast
Confidence among international investors has been on the wane for some months now and something must be done to address this – soon.
The trouble is that, two years after the banking crisis broke, we still cannot give definitive answers to a few questions.
What will the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) pay for the loans it is taking on from the banks? What will the cost of the Anglo bailout be? And Irish Nationwide?
And how much state cash will have to go into recapitalising AIB?
Read more at the Sunday Business Post
Anglo Irish to fall foul of Brussels veto
The EU Commission will veto the reinvention of Anglo Irish Bank as a significant financial entity, and looks set to order either its wind-down over a period of years or, at most, the continuation of a small-scale operation to retain savings and manage a small loan book.
Read more at the Sunday Business Post
It has been nationalised, pounded by a torrent of bad property debts and prohibited from lending money to new customers.
Its own future remains shrouded in doubt, while ratings agency Standard & Poors last week cited its very existence as a key factor behind Ireland’s credit rating downgrade.
Yet despite all this, and much more besides, Anglo Irish Bank is fast becoming an industrial holding conglomerate, taking stakes in a wide array of companies and business ventures.
Read more at the Sunday Business Post
A bond market body-blow to our embattled government
Last week, it was Ireland’s turn to suffer a bit of intimidation from the bond market.
The downgrading by Standard & Poor’s of our government debt merely confirmed what the bond market had been saying in recent months.
Over that time, the gap between the interest rate which the German government must pay to borrow money for ten years and the equivalent Irish borrowing rate climbed steadily from 1.5 per cent to 3 per cent.
Read more at the Sunday Business Post
The more the government keeps writing cheques for the banks, the worse our credit rating will get and the higher the price for the economy in terms of austerity.
It is good to see that the Financial Times has finally woken up to what is going on here.
The main reason is that the government and its advisers are so chronically insecure that a word, even an utterance of support, from the Financial Times and they are screaming all over the airwaves that the rest of the world thinks they are doing a great job.
This overblown reverence for what the FT thinks touches an insecurity which runs deep in the Irish psyche. It’s a case of ‘‘what will the neighbours think?”.
Read more at the Sunday Business Post
Tax: the shape of things to come
Next week marks the first anniversary of the Commission on Taxation’s report.
With almost 250 recommendations, the commission considered a broad range of taxation measures.
Proposals included an annual tax on all residential property, water charges and the taxing of child benefit. In last December’s budget, the government addressed some of the commission’s proposals, while other have been put on the long finger.
Read more at the Sunday Business Post
Aer Arann to leave e32m losses if examinership fails
Aer Arann will leave creditors nursing losses of more than €32 million if it fails to survive its period of examinership and collapses into liquidation.With losses of €18 million in the past 30 months, they make for grim reading.
There is one bright point, however – the company is worth more alive than dead.
On a going concern basis, it has a balance sheet deficit of just €10 million.
Read more at the Sunday Business Post
Nama facing €60 million McInerney Homes write-off
The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) could be forced to write off up to €60 million in loans connected with McInerney Homes, under proposals being developed to rescue the insolvent house builder. The Sunday Business Post has established that the publicly quoted company, which went into examinership last week, is proposing to write down loans due to be transferred to Nama from €111 million to around €50 million. This would represent a ‘‘haircut’’ of 54 per cent.
The loans are currently held by Anglo Irish Bank and Bank of Ireland, but are due to be transferred to Nama later this year.
Read more at the Sunday Business Post
Fexco outlay on Goodbody deal to exceed €60m
Kerry financial services company Fexco is set to inject around €35 million in regulatory capital into Goodbody Stockbrokers when it completes the acquisition of the company in the coming weeks.
It is understood that the deal is close to completion, and the injection of regulatory capital comes in addition to the final price tag of €25 million being paid to Goodbody owner AIB, bringing the total outlay to more than €60 million.
Read more at the Sunday Business post
Online marketing firm offers alternative to leaflet drops
Dublin-based company EasyDeals.ie, which classes itself as an ‘‘online marketplace’’, was set up earlier this year by entrepreneurs Des Martin and Andrew Mullaney.
The website allows companies to advertise deals and special offers online, with consumers then able to search for such deals by sector and locality. Martin said the website made it easier for companies to target relevant consumers with promotions, rather than adopting the more costly approach of blanket advertising in areas and dropping leaflets in doors.