In short

Today's other stories in brief

Kingspan co-founder in share sale

KINGSPAN non-executive director and co-founder, Brendan Murtagh, sold over €2.3 million worth of shares in the company this week.

The Cavan-based group released a statement yesterday saying that Mr Murtagh had sold 500,000 shares in the company, at €4.75 each.

The sale has reduced his holding in the company to 4.6 million from 5.1 million shares, and to 2.785 per cent of its issued share capital.

Mr Murtagh and his brother Eugene founded the company.

Eugene Murtagh’s son, Gene, is now the group’s chief executive.

Brendan Murtagh is a non-executive director of the the company, and, according to its 2008 annual report, has been with the group for 36 years. The company’s share price rose 5.6 per cent on the Dublin market to €5.015.

Realix in five-year Virgin deal

DUBLIN ELECTRONIC payments firm Realex Payments yesterday confirmed that it has signed a five year deal with Virgin Atlantic. Realex will handle payment processing, fraud management, consolidated reporting and currency management as well as other tasks for the airline’s online bookings globally. The service has gone live and is being rolled out across each of the airlines regional sites. Realex Payments was founded in 2000 by Colm Lyon, a former senior IT manager with Ulster Bank. It processes in excess of €6 billion in payments annually on behalf of 3,000 merchants across Europe including Vodafone, Aer Lingus, Quinn Insurance, and Motortax.ie.

Obama to appoint a 'pay tsar'

The Obama administration is to appoint a "pay tsar" with the power to vet remuneration of the top 100 employees in each US company taking government bail-out funds as part of a raft of compensation reforms. The administration is also expected to bring in "say on pay" legislation that would force public companies to hold non-binding shareholder votes on executive pay every
year. Kenneth Feinberg, the former head of the 9/11 compensation fund, is expected to be named as the tsar. (Financial TImes service)

GE wins Bord Gáis power contract

Multi-national General Electric (GE) has won the contract to operate and maintain State-owned Bord Gáis Éireann's new power plant. Bord Gáis has been building a €400 million-plus electricity generating plant in Cork Harbour with the capacity to supply up to 400,000 homes with electricity.
Yesterday the State-owned energy company announced it has given the contract to operate and maintain the facility to GE.

Oil prices surge to seven-month high

Oil prices surged to a seven-month high near $72 a barrel yesterday after a US government report showed a slowdown in crude imports eating away at inventories in the world's top energy user. US crude for July delivery rose $1.32 to settle at $71.33 a barrel after hitting a peak of $71.79 earlier in the session - the highest since mid-October. US stockpiles fell by a larger-than-expected 4.4 million barrels last week as imports dropped by 676,000 barrels per day.