A roundup of today's other business news in brief

EBS to raise standard variable mortgage rate by 0.6%

EBS has announced it is to increase its Standard Variable Rate (SVR) mortgage by 0.6 per cent from April 1st.

Its SVR will increase from 3.83 per cent to 4.43 per cent and will add more than €100 a month to the repayments on a mortgage of €300,000.

EBS said the increase was unavoidable and blamed the increased cost of its own borrowing from retail, corporate and wholesale markets. It added that the average SVR loan size for its customers was €90,108, which would make the average monthly payment increase about €30.

“As the costs of funds to EBS continues to rise in international markets, EBS needs to take this step to ensure that our business remains viable,” EBS spokeswoman Dara Deering said.

Nursing home company loses €4.8m

Allenfield Care Homes Ltd, which runs two nursing homes, one in Co Roscommon and another in Co Kerry, recorded a loss of €4.87 million in 2009, according to accounts filed.

The company wrote down the value of its property by €3.78 million, the value of a subsidiary by €415,439 and created a bad debt provision of €239,763. The company is owned by developers Bernard McNamara and David Courtney, Exsos Aps of Denmark and Norwegian building group Selvaag Gruppen.

Allenfield's property was valued at €6.5 million. The company's subsidiary, Selvaag Ireland Ltd, owns a site at Killnacally, Ennis, Co Clare, which was reduced in value to €50,000 from €472,284 in 2009 accounts.

At the end of 2009, Allenfield had a deficiency of assets of €13.2 million and its accounts, signed on January 19th, 2011, were prepared on a going concern basis with a presumption of continued support from its banks, listed as Bank of Ireland and Anglo Irish Bank.

The company runs nursing homes at Knockavota, Milltown, Co Kerry, and Ballyleague, Lanesborough, Co Roscommon.