Our lead story this morning concerns an intervention from the competition watchdog, the CCPC, which is asking the Government to raise the threshold at which businesses are obliged to inform it of mergers and acquisitions.
The watchdog has to be formally notified of mergers or acquisitions involving businesses above a certain turnover, with the idea being that the more business a group does, the more important it is in a competition sense.
The threshold at which the CCPC is mandated to get involved hasn’t changed in more than five years, during which time inflation has led to higher turnovers for companies, and the CCPC says many of the deals landing on its desk are not worth its time. Conor Pope has the details.
Meanwhile, SYS Financial, the fast-growing financial broking group founded by former Tipperary hurling star Tony Delaney, has acquired financial planning practice GTL Life and Pensions to bring its overall assets under management to more than €680 million.
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The 11-year-old business said it has further acquisitions in the pipeline that are projected to bring its client assets under management to €1.3 billion by April. You can read the story here.
It seems the group may be tapping into a fruitful market, if the findings of a new report are to be believed. It suggests more than a third of Irish adults struggle to grasp basic financial concepts, rising to almost 70 per cent of those aged 18 to 24. Conor Pope has the story.
Another Irish business, cybersecurity specialist Ekco, is investing €10 million over the next two years with the opening of a new office in Trinidad and Tobago.
The company’s expansion in the Caribbean will lead to the creation of 18 jobs by the end of 2027 and will enable Ekco to increase its revenues in the region from €2 million to €5 million over the same period.
With Pilita Clark away this week, our guest columnist Bethan Staton has stepped in, writing about the challenges facing employers in redesigning offices for the different ways in which staff, some of whom may be neurodivergent, may want to work.
Elsewhere, we visit the ever-present topic of artificial intelligence, as Chris Horn examines whether “hyper-intelligence” will intrinsically emerge from these systems in the event they are allocated sufficient computing resources. Read it at your peril.
Also this morning, Dominic Coyle deals with a query from a reader who is seeking advice on how to limit the taxman’s haul on their estate when they die. It’s a hugely important subject for lots of people, and you can read his take on the issue here.
On another topic entirely, Bulgaria has just become the 21st member of the euro zone. John FitzGerald’s weekly column explores the history lessons the country might look to at this seminal moment in its history.
Finally, Ollie Chatten, who is chief executive of EZO, Ireland’s largest private EV charging network, argues that Ireland needs to get serious on electric vehicle charging infrastructure in this week’s opinion piece. It’s a drum many have been banging for some time.
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