‘Potential bidders’ for Ires assets emerge amid rebel shareholder campaign

In the latest skirmish between Ireland’s biggest private landlord and an activist shareholder, the Sunday Times reports that Vision Capital “potential bidders” have emerged for Ires Reit assets as it continues its efforts to force the sale of some 4,000 properties over the next two years.

The Canadian fund, which holds a 5 per cent stake in the Dublin-listed company, is campaigning to persuade fellow shareholders to back its plan. Vision, headed by investor Jeff Olin, is pushing for a wholesale boardroom shake-up and for the group to be taken private, sold or broken up.

Ires, meanwhile, has committed to its own strategic review of the business while also urging shareholders to vote against Vision’s proposal at an extraordinary general meeting next February.

Now, the paper reports that Vision has outlined a three-pronged plan, firstly to sell premium Ires properties such as the Marker Hotel in Dublin’s Docklands, followed by disposals to State-backed buyers and approved housing bodies.

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An Ires spokesman said the proposals demonstrate that Vision “do not understand either Ires’s assets or the Irish real-estate market”.

Jobs at risk from car-free Dublin plan, says BT-Arnotts

The Sunday Independent leads its business with a report that the owner of Brown Thomas-Arnotts has warned of a risk to jobs from a “radical” new transport plan that aims to take two-thirds of the number of cars off the streets of Dublin.

The retailer has fired a broadside at the Dublin City Centre Transport Plan, which was open for public consultation until December 1st.

“Our primary concern is the potential deterrent effect on our customers’ ability to access our stores particularly those living in areas not served by public transport,” the department store operator wrote in a letter to Dublin City Council.

The local authority, meanwhile, said it received some 3,500 submissions related to the scheme, 80 per cent of which were positive.

Tax debt repayment date to be pushed back for hard-hit firms

Businesses struggling with pandemic-era tax debt will be given almost a decade to repay the Revenue Commissioners as part of plans being drawn up by the Government to prevent a wave of small company closures, the Business Post reports.

Currently, businesses have until May 1st to repay tax bills warehoused during the pandemic or work out a phased payment arrangement with the tax authority over five years.

However, the Department of Finance is exploring plans to give these companies between three and five extra years to repay their debts, although Minister for Finance Michael McGrath is yet to sign off on the initiative.

Tara Mines staff reject rescue plan

Tensions between Tara Mines operator Boliden and workers at the shuttered facility continue to ratchet up, the Business Post also reports, with staff represented by trade union Siptu rejecting a proposed rescue plan last week.

Delegates gave union officials a mandate to continue talks with the company at the Workplace Relations Commission at a meeting next Monday.

Staff remain unhappy with the terms of the deal offered by the Swedish mine operator, which has been characterised by trade union Unite as a “slash and burn” approach that would permanently reduce the workforce there and substantively change terms and conditions for the remaining workers.

Production was shut down last July, with 650 workers temporarily laid off after what the company said were “significant and unsustainable financial losses” amid falling zinc prices globally.

Mixed-use scheme plan for Cadbury site

A Coolock site owned by Cadbury and used as a pitch-and-putt course for its workers is the target of plans to build a major 39,000sq m mixed-use scheme, the Sunday Independent reports.

A company linked to developer Aidan Harrison’s Channor Real Estate, the outfit behind several office buildings at Blanchardstown Corporate Park, is to apply for planning permission to build some 330 residential units along with retail and assisted living units at the seven-acre site in north Dublin.

The scheme, dubbed Traynor Gardens, is to be built in six blocks of between three and nine storeys adjacent to the Northside Retail Park.

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