Current Account

Puzzling out O'Brien's Independent game: It takes a lot to excite Current Account in these dark January days, but the activities of of one Denis O'Brien could fit the bill very nicely.

Like almost everybody else in the market, Current Account is wondering what exactly Mr O'Brien is up to in declaring his 3 per cent interest in Independent News & Media, the firm that just happens to be 26 per cent-owned by his business sparring partner, Sir Anthony O'Reilly.

To begin with, the declaration itself raises some peculiar questions. Why did Mr O'Brien choose to out himself at 3 per cent when he could have waited until reaching 5 per cent without informing the company? If stake-building was on his mind, surely keeping quiet and thus keeping a lid on the share price would have made the most sense. And then there's his readiness to declare in his own name rather than through another entity, as is the practice of Dermot Desmond, the French family and the McCanns at Fyffes? Current Account presumes Mr O'Brien is a sizeable investor in public companies all over the place that do not necessarily receive notification of his shareholding in the same way.

The next question relates to the motivation behind the move. The obvious driver would be a takeover move, but how realistic would this be when a quarter of the company is owned by Sir Anthony, who would be unlikely to back a sale to Mr O'Brien? The "everybody has a price" notion might apply, but it is doubtful. What might be more realistic of course would be to see the O'Reillys forced (like the Doyles at Jurys) to bid themselves simply to keep the invaders away. In this instance, Denis could end up as kingmaker.

The other angle is that Mr O'Brien is simply investing. With a yield of nearly 5 per cent, Independent could justify a punt even if the investor needed to borrow to make the bet.

Stock exchange lays bare its PR process: Somebody forgot to press a button before the statement from the Irish Stock Exchange on the Fyffes/DCC case was sent out earlier this week, by e-mail, to the media.

When the attachment was opened deletions from the draft text were still legible, highlighted in red. The statement was embargoed to 2pm, having earlier been embargoed to 12pm . Perhaps someone decided they didn't want the issue treated on the News At One.

Most of the few corrections that were visible were simple grammatical changes, such as changing capital letters to lower case letters and the like. However, at the conclusion of the seven page statement a more significant amendment could be read. The original draft said: "Allegations of insider dealing or breaches of either the word or the spirit of the listing rules of the Exchange are extremely serious matters". This was changed, so that the reference to breaches of the listing rules was deleted. No doubt this doesn't reflect any view that they are not considered to be serious matters.

Finally a line that the exchange "welcomes" public scrutiny was changed to the exchange "expects" public scrutiny. Indeed!

Confused name trade: Shareholders in AIB had a brief brush with panic yesterday after early morning trade in the stock seemed to register a 27 per cent drop in its value.

The apparent fall came to light when investors checked the AIB share price on one stockbroker's website just after 9am.

It seems the problem stemmed from a very small early deal in AIB's shares that was recorded at about €13.16, or €4.97 less than Wednesday's close.

Records of the trade, which was registered by the Irish Stock Exchange, were then taken up by Reuters, the wire service. In turn, they were posted on the website of one of the main stockbroking firms, via a data feed.

Doubts immediately arose among investors, who wondered what had gone wrong at their favourite bank. The websites of other brokers reassured them somewhat by carrying no evidence of the trade, but there was still a touch of worry in the air.

Happily for the shareholders, the exchange was already on the case, having noted the rogue trade and contacted the broker.

The explanation was, as they usually are, entirely simple. The share trade that was recorded in AIB had in fact taken place in Anglo Irish Bank, a stock which trades comfortably around the €13 mark.