Seen & Heard: Apple feels crunch of housing crisis

No room at the inn Executives at Apple’s Irish business are concerned that the current housing crisis could impede

recruitment of new staff at its European headquarters, the Sunday Times reports.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook announced plans to hire another 1,000 staff in Cork by 2017, but local boss Cathy Kearney has since met Cork City Council chief executive Ann Doherty over the dearth of private rental accommodation in the city.

Surprise move

Developer

Greg Kavanagh

is being sued by his former business partner

Mark Murray

, according to the

Sunday Independent

. In a case said to have taken the man behind New Generation Homes by surprise, Murray is seeking confirmation that he owns up to €1 million worth of properties.

Hot hotel

Four parties reman in the race to acquire Dublin’s

Gresham Hotel

, the

Sunday Business Post

reports, and each is prepared to pay around €85 million for the property. Some 13 groups bid for the hotel, which had a guide price of €80 million. Six of the initial bids were above that figure.

Buyers sought

Danske Bank has hired

KPMG

as its enters the final stage of its withdrawal from the Irish market, th

e Sunday Times

reports. The bank is seeking buyers for its €2 billion residential mortgage book with initial bids for up to half of that due by the summer, the paper writes.

Money in dough The family behind the Brennan's bread business has paid around €35 million to acquire the Grafton Street building from which Tommy Hilfiger trades, according to the Sunday Times. The building was owned previously by the property wing of German bank Deka, which paid €25 million for it in 2009.

Quick turnaround

The

Sunday Independent

reports that Mainstream Renewable Power co-founder and chief executive Eddie O’Connor is looking to float the business by the end of 2018. It had put consideration of an IPO on the back-burner as it went through a restructuring that sees it concentrate now on developing markets, the paper reports, adding that the business had moved from a €50 million 2014 loss to a profit of €96 million last year.

Czech investment

A fund backed by the Czech finance minister Andrej Babis has bought a majority stake in Irish fertility business ReproMed. FutureLife, which owns 15 fertility clinics in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the UK is owned by the

Hartenberg

Holding investment fund backed by the billionaire minister and Jozef Janov.