Riverdeep's warning to would-be investors

Current Account:Don't say you weren't warned. The information memorandum on Riverdeep's takeover of Houghton Mifflin contains the following stark warning to would be investors.

"Barry O'Callaghan, his co-investors and Tespol management team, will at completion beneficially own over 50 per cent of the outstanding shares. As a consequence of the foregoing the principle shareholders have and will continue to have, directly or indirectly, the power to affect NewCo's [ HMRivergroup] legal structure and its day-to-day operations as well as strategic direction. The interests of these shareholders, in certain circumstances, may conflict with your interests as shareholders".

Whatever can they mean?

Advice for a deal doesn't come cheap

Staying on the topic of Ireland's biggest-ever deal, the takeover of Mark Twain's original publisher by the promoter of such modern classics as Reader Rabbit may also have set a domestic record for fees paid in a transaction. Some $90.2 million was shelled out in financing fees and an additional $56.4 million went on what are described in the memo as "other fees".

And who were the benefactrices of this largess which was equivalent to almost the entire cash balances of the combined company. Well Credit Suisse and Citibank were on Riverdeep's side and will be underwriting the debt while Goldman Sachs was in Houghton Mifflin's corner.

And where there is a deal there is a lawyer, with Matheson Ormsby Prentice providing legal advice to Riverdeep along with Weil, Gotshal & Manges. Houghton Mifflin was getting its advice from Mason Hayes+Curran together with Roper & Gray.

Slippery customer

There's no doubt that property is the national obsession, but acquiring a banana company for the sole purpose of getting hold of a piece of land in Dublin's Smithfield seems to be taking things a bit far.

However, if you speak to analysts or indeed people close to Blackrock, the property group spun off by banana distributor Fyffes, that's exactly what anyone seeking to buy either Blackrock, or its Smithfield property, is expected to have to do.

Given that Fyffes has a 40 per cent holding in Blackrock, and the McCann family a further 6.4 per cent, it seems probable that anyone seeking to build a stake in the group with a view to taking it over will have to add bananas to his or her portfolio as well.

Maybe they should just ask Blackrock if they will sell them the site?

Sony hits a bad patch

Japanese electronics giant Sony must wonder what it has done to offend the ancestral spirits.

The company has suffered sustained adverse publicity from a series of battery recalls that has now impacted most of the major computer manufacturers that it supplies.

In addition, its breakthrough games console, the PlayStation 3, has been bedevilled by problems that have seen it largely miss the crucial Christmas selling season. In Europe, no-one will be able to buy the console until next March.

Now the group's cameras appear to have caught whatever yips are affecting its products. A significant number of the the company's best-selling range of Cyber-shot cameras have developed a critical fault - they can't take pictures.

Around 4,000 of the one million plus Cyber-shot cameras sold to date have developed the problem which Sony admits is down to its own failure at the design stage.

The company has not yet announced a product recall but says it will fix for free any of the eight affected models that malfunction.

Apparently the problems occur when the digital cameras are exposed to tropical climates ...so the Irish should be able to use their cameras with confidence.