In short

Today's other stories in brief

Ricard to be next chief of Irish Distillers

Pernod Ricard has named Alexandre Ricard as chairman and chief executive of its Irish Distillers business. Mr Ricard (36), who previously worked as finance and administration director for the Irish operation, has managed Pernod's duty-free operations in Asia since September 2006.

He will replace Paul Duffy, who has been appointed chief executive of Pernod's US operations. Both appointments take effect on July 1st.

Leeds to enter Irish deposit market

Leeds Building Society, the seventh-largest building society in the UK, is entering the Irish deposit market from July 1st after securing regulatory approval.

The building society is still working on the products and rates it will offer Irish customers.

It will be the first time the building society has taken euro deposits.

A spokesman for the building society said it would be launching a one-year and two-year fixed deposit account, and that it may allow customers to withdraw up to 50 per cent of their money during the fixed term of the account. It will also offer a notice account.

The society has an office in Dublin, but will deal with its Irish customers by post and cheque.

Leeds Building Society entered the Irish mortgage market in late 2006, selling home loans through brokers.

O2 to cut EU roaming text rates

Mobile operator O2 is to cut the price pre-pay customers pay to send texts while travelling in the EU by 25 per cent. From July 1st, the cost of sending a text in Europe will reduce to 29 cent from the current 39 cent, bringing it in line with the cost for bill-pay customers.

Vodafone has also announced reductions in charges for business customers on its Wireless Office Plus tariff. They include new rates of 15 cent a minute to UK mobiles and landlines.

May's wholesale price index up 0.8%

The price of goods leaving factory gates rose in May, the Central Statistics Office said yesterday.

According to the wholesale price index, manufactured goods prices rose by 0.8 per cent in May to bring the annual percentage change to 3 per cent lower when compared with May 2007.

Providence gets set for Irish drilling

Irish oil and gas explorer Providence Resources said yesterday it had contracted a semi-submersible to drill at least two wells off the Irish coast this summer.

Drilling is expected to begin in August in the North Celtic Sea Basin off Hook Head with the GlobalSantaFe Arctic 2 rig.

Providence, which has a 42.5 per cent stake in this licence, and its partners believe the fields could contain 60 million barrels of recoverable oil.

A second well will focus on the Dunmore discovery, which has an estimated 18 million barrels of oil.

An option exists to drill a third well.

Smurfit Kappa chief buys shares

Smurfit Kappa chief executive Gary McGann has bought shares in the company worth more than €810,000.

Smurfit announced yesterday that Mr McGann had bought 159,095 shares in the company, valued at €5.0961 each.

The transaction leaves him with close to 400,000 shares.

Circle Oil in Tunisian deal

Circle Oil said yesterday that Tethys Oil and Mining Ltd will take a 30 per cent interest in its Mahdia permit area off the Tunisian coast.

The area is close to commercial fields exploited by majors such as Shell.