BT’s £13bn Irish move, EY award winners and Beacon Hospital expanding

Telecoms giant BT Group is establishing a standalone subsidiary in the Republic to manage its global procurement needs which will have a £13 billion (€14.5 billion) annual budget. Charlie Taylor reports that the new company will be responsible for managing the group's spend with suppliers around the world.

The owners of the Beacon Hospital are closing in on the acquisition of the neighbouring Beacon Hotel at Sandyford in south Dublin, writes Ronald Quinlan. The deal would give the Denis O'Brien-owned hospital scope for substantial expansion.

Ronald also has details of the sale by Cosgrave Property Group of 297 apartments it is developing in Santry in north Dublin to a joint venture between Round Hill Capital and QuadReal Property Group.

Well-known Dublin tourism business Viking Splash Tours is facing liquidation this month after a long period of pandemic-enforced closure. Barry O'Halloran reports that its owners are hopeful a buyer will emerge to offer the business a lifeline.

Cost of pre-flight Covid-19 tests hampers airline recovery, unions say

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Distillery co-founder John O’Connell scoops EY industry entrepreneur award

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Inflazome’s Matt Cooper named best emerging entrepreneur

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BT sets-up Irish procurement business with €14.5bn budget

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A physical ceremony may not have been possible this year, but the 2020 EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards still managed to put on the virtual glitz on Thursday night, with Nicola Mitchell of Life Scientific emerging as overall victor, and John O'Connell of West Cork Distillers and Matt Cooper of Inflazome winning in their respective categories. You'll find full coverage of the event on irishtimes.com/business or in print in Business This Week.

With the end of Level 5 lockdown in partial sight, Mark Paul uses his Caveat column to call for an earlier opening of non-essential retail to help ease some of "the inevitable congestion we are storing up for December". He argues the evidence does not back up worries over Covid infection rates in retail environments, while a November easing of restrictions could make us all feel a little less miserable.

Joe Brennan has a big read on the impact of this week's two big global news events – positive vaccine developments and Joe Biden's election in the US – on stock markets. He suggests it might be premature to cancel the Zoom Christmas party, but he identifies a sense of tentative positivity for next year.

In his economics column, John FitzGerald considers what president-elect Biden might be able to do to help restore normality to a US economy shattered by Covid. Local lockdowns need to come with stimulus at federal level, he writes.

With working from home inescapable for many at this point, Olive Keogh asks how well protected employers are when it comes to tech security risks. Personal devices are being used by many employees, she writes, with not all of these properly secure.

And finally, this week's Wild Goose is Olivia Tracey: actor, writer and model. A former Miss Ireland and RTÉ continuity announcer, Tracey is now based in LA, where she is thriving despite the city's "brutal" side.

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