In Short

A round-up of today's business news stories in brief

Revenue up 2.9% at Northern Foods

Northern Foods, the manufacturer of Donegal Catch frozen fish and Goodfella’s pizzas, said yesterday that first-half revenue rose 2.9 per cent.

The firm said total sales were up 2.5 per cent during the first six months of 2009.

While market conditions remain competitive, it had seen strong growth in underlying revenue in chilled and bakery products which had offset a decline in sales of frozen goods.

First-half chilled goods revenues rose 8.8 per cent.

Conroy upbeat on zinc discovery

Mining company Conroy Diamonds and Gold said yesterday that results from infill and regional soil sampling at its gold targets in Monaghan and Armagh, showed values ranging up to 4,047 parts per million (ppm) of zinc.

The findings raise the possibility of a large zinc discovery at the sites. In a statement, Conroy said infill sampling has resulted in three separate zinc-in-soil anomalies merging into a single anomaly covering an area of over 8sq km.

EU competition raid on pharma groups

Sanofi-Aventis, the Paris-based pharmaceutical group, and Israel’s Teva, the world’s largest generic drugs producer, have been raided by European competition officials in an inquiry into suspected anti-trust breaches.

The European Commission said “surprise inspections” had begun yesterday at the premises of a number of pharmaceutical companies because of concerns about “possible anti-competitive business practices and/or abuse of a dominant position”.

The commission did not elaborate further, but the move comes less than three months after it completed a detailed 18-month inquiry into practices in the drugs sector. This concluded that the launch of generic rival drugs was being delayed and costs to consumers inflated. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

Fitch downgrades Ulster Bank rating

Ulster Bank has had its rating by the Fitch Ratings agency downgraded to E from D because of its perceived need for increased capital support.

The support requirement arises from the approximately £25 billion of the bank’s loans that are likely to be covered indirectly by the UK’s asset protection scheme via an agreement with Ulster Bank’s parent, Royal Bank of Scotland, the agency said.

New chief at  Irish Dairy Board

The Irish Dairy Board (IDB) has appointed Kevin Lane as the new chief executive of the organisation, with effect from January 2010.

Mr Lane joins the IDB from food group Kerry, where he is chief executive of Kerry’s global flavours division. Mr Lane replaces the IDB’s interim chief executive Dr Seán Brady, who was appointed in March while the board conducted a formal process to replace former chief executive Noel Coakley.