In Short

A round-up of today's other stories in brief.

Sale of iPhones to be restricted

Residents of the Republic will be restricted from buying Apple's iPhone when it goes on sale in Northern Ireland this afternoon via the O2 network.

The iPhone will cost £269 (£386.68) and buyers will have to commit to an 18-month contract of £35-£55 a month.

According to O2 UK's website, there will be a limit of two iPhones per customer and only credit or debit cards will be taken as payment.

An O2 spokeswoman confirmed that a valid address in Northern Ireland or elsewhere in the UK would be needed to complete the online activation, which is required before calls can be made.

UK bank rejects Landsbanki bid

Icelandic bank Landsbanki, a frontrunner in the race to buy Irish Nationwide Building Society, was yesterday rebuffed in a joint £1.4 billion (€2 billion) bid for British investment bank Close Brothers.

Landsbanki made its 950p-a-share approach with advisory firm Cenkos Securities, but the offer was rejected by Close Brothers as "wholly inadequate".

Cenkos wants to take the securities, asset management and corporate finance businesses of Close Brothers, while Landsbanki will keep the banking operations.

The Icelandic bank said in August it had set aside as much as €400 million for overseas acquisitions.

Shares in Close Brothers surged by a record 21 per cent to 916.5p yesterday.

Trinity's new appointments

Ronan O'Caoimh is giving up his position as chief executive of Trinity Biotech to become its executive chairman.

Mr O'Caoimh has been chairman and chief executive of the company since 1995.

Brendan Farrell, president of the company, will become chief executive. Chief financial officer Rory Nealon will become chief operations officer and will be replaced by chief accounting officer Kevin Tansley.

Calyx acquires ServiceTec

Calyx Technologies has acquired ServiceTec, a UK firm specialising in the installation and support of IT networks, for an undisclosed sum.

According to accounts filed earlier this year, ServiceTec had a turnover of £15.2 million (€21.8 million) and generated a profit of £542,000 before tax in the year to the end of June last. It also had a forward order book of £13.63 million in revenues.

This is the first acquisition by Calyx since a management buyout, completed last July, took the company private.

Eads to undergo cost-cutting

Eads, Europe's aerospace and defence group, is being forced to plan a fresh wave of cost-cutting and restructuring, as its competitiveness is undermined by the weakness of the US dollar.

The group also disclosed yesterday that it was seeking urgent talks with European governments to seek financial concessions on its €20 billion contract to supply the A400M military transport aircraft. - (Financial Times service)

Northgate wins £120m in deals

Northgate, the London-listed technology services group with a significant operation in Northern Ireland, said it has won contracts worth more than £120 million (€172.2 million) in the first half of the year.

Northgate said growth at its managed services division in Newtownabbey was driven by "significant education contracts" won last year.

Positive update from Ormonde

Ormonde Mining has issued a positive drilling update for its La Zarza copper/gold/zinc mine in southwest Spain. The company reported "thick intervals of good grade zinc".