CurrentAccount

Which semi-state will make An Post blush? :

Which State company is next? With An Post unburdening itself this week, which State-owned company is going to reveal its level of losses for 2003 next?

While nobody expects any of the commercial semi-states to match An Post's appalling level of losses, one or two other State companies could still turn in results to make even An Post executives blush.

RTÉ, for example, produced a deficit of more than €13 million for the first half of 2003, so who knows what might transpire there before the year is out. While number cruncher Conor Hayes is trying to balance the books, it cannot be easy with advertising in such short supply. Nevertheless, the company, for all its problems, should be able to at least break even for 2003.

While companies like Aer Lingus and the ESB are trading away nicely, there are one or two others that could yet beat An Post's staggering €47.2 million forecasted loss for this year.

So step up, who is going to beat that?

Well, our old friends in CIÉ are probably the most likely, with Irish Rail producing a deficit of €66 million last year alone. That was even after receiving a massive subsidy from the taxpayer.

One suspects CIÉ executives would be delighted to produce a respectable deficit of just €47.2 million for 2003.

Elan's stake in Galen unaltered by filing saga:

One party that will have been more than attentive to the "will they, won't they" saga unfolding at Elan over recent weeks is fellow pharmaceutical Galen.

Close to 4 per cent of the Craigavon-based firm's shares have been tied up for the past few years within one of Elan's mysterious off-balance-sheet EPIL vehicles, the very structures that can be blamed for the messiness surrounding the company's accounts.

Galen tried to buy back the shares last year when valuations were appealing but was refused on the basis that they were tied up as an investment within the EPIL III vehicle until 2005. Galen's price has risen since then, but the uncertainty attached to the filing delays of the past month, when Elan's very survival hung in the balance, must nonetheless have raised a few eyebrows at Galen headquarters.

Now that Elan has put the filing business behind it, however, the status of its Galen holding looks set to remain more or less unchanged.

Current Account hears that even though the previously opaque EPIL III vehicle will now be consolidated on Elan's balance sheet for all the world to see, the Galen holding will continue to be locked up until the year after next as originally planned. After that, the future of the shares will, once again, be anybody's guess.

Desmond bets against the bookmakers:

With what he himself refers to as an "eclectic" portfolio of investments, it could hardly have surprised the bookmaking fraternity when financier Mr Dermot Desmond took a stake in online betting operation Betdaq. That hasn't stopped the bookmakers complaining that such betting exchanges are unfair and open to abuse.

And the publicity-shy Mr Desmond this week responded in a rare interview. It may have been with the Financial Times but Mr Desmond was restricting his comments to two issues - Betdaq and football. He said the bookmakers were only complaining because exchanges like Betdaq, with their lower margins and greater flexibility, were a competitive threat.

He also poured cold water on the idea that his investment in the fledgling internet venture was made with one eye to a lucrative flotation.

"I don't build businesses to look at floating," he said. "I build them to make them profitable."

That explains his intention to formally complain both to the British Office of Fair Trading and to the European Commission about the £1.02 billion sterling (€1.48 billion) television rights deal brokered with BSkyB by the Premier League. He believes that, in making the deal, the league's 20 clubs are acting as a cartel.

More pointedly, he says that clubs with a large fan base - such as Manchester United and Scottish side Celtic - could make more for themselves by going solo. Mr Desmond has stakes in both clubs.

But the man notable for playing his cards close to his chest did scotch one rumour that does the rounds with tiresome regularity. Would he or associates JP McManus or John Magnier ever buy Manchester United? "No. I can't speak for anyone else. My interest is in Celtic football club. My interest in Manchester United is financial."