Eason to sell O’Connell St flagship, failings at EY and Ryanair pilots make a move

‘Business Today: the best news, analysis and comment from ‘The Irish Times’ business desk

Eason is to sell its flagship store in Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times

US president Donald Trump has said he will pull out of the World Trade Organisation if it doesn't treat the US better, targeting a cornerstone of the international trading system.

Irish books and stationery retailer Eason is planning to sell 13 properties in the Republic in a move that it expects to generate a ¤60 million windfall for its 220 shareholders, reports Ciarán Hancock. This will include the sale of its flagship property on O'Connell Street in Dublin.

Serious failings and professional incompetence were alleged in an unpublished report compiled by a former comptroller and auditor general into elements of Ernst & Young's audits of Anglo Irish Bank in the years leading up to its nationalisation in early 2009 . Jack Power reports and also delves into the issue in depth in our Agenda piece.

Staying with Anglo, Joe Brennan and Charlie Taylor report that the Government is seeking to hire a firm to assess whether Anglo Irish Bank had any equity value at the time of its nationalisation almost a decade ago, which will determine who stands to benefit if there are funds left over after the failed bank's creditors have been dealt with.

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And still on the Anglo theme, Simon Carswell writes that a US judge has rejected an Irish-American businessman's bid to have his claim of fraud against the former Anglo Irish Bank over a €10 million debt heard in a Delaware court.

And finally, Caveat wonders, in the wake of the Lehman get together, what the reaction would be to an Anglo staff reunion ten years on.

A group backed by European pilot unions has written to Ryanair proposing a way out of the industrial relations turbulence in which the airline found itself this summer. Barry O'Halloran has the details.

Office construction rates in Dublin are now back at boom time levels with demand being driven by "Big Tech" and finance firms and a new wave of shared-office space providers, according to property consultancy HWBC. Eoin Burke-Kennedy reports.

Shareholders in Malin Corporation, the Dublin-based life sciences investment firm that's reviewing its strategy in the wake of a share price slump and boardroom shake-up, are being urged by a major advisory firm to reject its executive pay plan at an upcoming meeting, writes Joe Brennan.

"Back in the 1960s, the only natural asset we had was grass. We didn't do much with it, other than letting the cows eat it and then live cattle, no value added, were exported out," says Danny McCoy in our weekly interview slot.

Olive Keogh tells us that the Internet of Things is coming and will turn our world of work upside down, while, in our management column, Lisa van der Werff says that we know very little about how women navigate their return to work after maternity leave.

John FitzGerald argues that getting more women into the workforce will help ease the tightening jobs market.

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Conn Ó Midheach

Conn Ó Midheach

Conn O Midheach is Assistant Business Editor - Digital of The Irish Times