Opportunity knocks for ambitious Kerry: The next few months will be telling for Kerry Group's stated ambition to become a world- leading player in the food ingredients business.
Both Denmark's Chr Hansen and Germany's Degussa are seeking to sell their food ingredients units. Kerry will be keen to nab one of these and expand its position in a consolidating sector.
The sales process for the Hansen business is already under way, with the initial deadline for expressions of bid interest believed to have been at the end of January. Kerry is understood to have thrown its hat into the ring, but is likely to face stiff competition from other trade buyers.
Danish sugar and food ingredients company Danisco may be out of the frame, due in part to competition issues. Its announcement last week that it is buying out the other investors in US biotech firm Genencor for $591.5 million and is planning a share buyback programme has led market observers to conclude that it has its hands full elsewhere.
Given the keen interest in what is seen as a world-class business, Hansen's ingredients division is expected to fetch up to €1 billion.
The Degussa sale is unlikely to be far behind Hansen's; a price of around €700 million is being mentioned in connection with the business, which makes flavourings for carbonated drinks, juices and alcoholic beverages.
Kerry could finance either purchase with debt, but most analysts believe that a rights issue is likely to accompany any successful bid, a factor holding back the share price, which is up by just 2 per cent over the last four months against an index gain of 14.5 per cent.
NCB noted recently that if Kerry were to succeed in buying the Chr Hansen business for €1 billion, it would drive the group's net debt-to-EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes and amortisation) ratio to more than 4.3 times, well in excess of its long-term upper ceiling limit of three times. Kerry is also likely to want to retain some firepower for whatever other opportunities emerge. Interesting times ahead.
Kinks remain unironed in contested local loop: Eircom and ComReg at loggerheads again over "unbundling the local loop", the telecoms jargon that refers to opening the last mile of Eircom's copper network for use by rivals.
This week ComReg issued an ultimatum to Eircom threatening to take it to the High Court if the firm refuses to meet its rivals and discuss ways to open more telephone lines to competition. For its part, Eircom has threatened to appeal to the new electronic communications appeals panel - a move that would delay any action for at least five months.
The decision to set up an appeals panel of senior lawyers to oversee regulatory decisions followed a period of tension between ComReg and the Department of Communications. But now with the regulator and the State enjoying much closer relations, the appeals panel may end up being just another layer of bureaucracy.
After all, firms still retain the right to appeal decisions made by the appeals panel to the courts, which will further delay ComReg decisions. And with ComReg all tied up in legal knots don't expect Eircom's "local loop" to be unbundled anytime soon.
Hold the front page - no porn services at RTE: In financial terms, RTÉ has rebounded strongly in the last two years and is expected to shortly report a healthy surplus for 2004.
A lot of this hard work is down to Corkman Conor Hayes, the chief financial officer and former boss of Ryanair. He has managed to create a whole new system of reporting at RTÉ and is also known to keep a close watch on costs at Montrose. But raising extra revenue could be the main challenge at the station as competition in the radio and television sectors grows.
Already RTÉ is making about €5.5 million from sponsorship and also earns some revenue from SMS services. Seeing as these areas are already well served, where to next?
Well this week Mr Hayes joked that the only things left were pornographic or betting services. However, before reporters rushed off to file sensational front page stories, Hayes emphatically assured them RTÉ wasn't planning to offer either service, even if some of RTÉ's more elderly viewers occasionally describe pop videos shown on the channel as being dangerously close to pornographic.
