Spare a thought for Green Property, a fully paid-up member of the "old economy". While profitability grows, the company's share price has resolutely failed to shine in recent times.

Not encouraging surely, and one shareholder at last week's a.g.m. also expressed dissatisfaction at the level of press coverage for the group's latest annual results. This he attributed to the fact that big-league industrial players Smurfit and CRH also reported their results on the same day.

Responding, Green's managing director Mr Stephen Vernon said there was a race between firms every spring to get the results out.

While accepting that the timing of the announcement clashed with other Dublin firms, he said Green had hoped to maximise coverage in the London press. "But that failed miserably too, because we got dismal coverage in the UK," Mr Vernon said.

There's always next year, eh?