A roundup of today's other business news in brief
New Ireland links with BNY Mellon
New Ireland, part of the Bank of Ireland group, has overlooked its primary investment manager – Bank of Ireland Asset Management – in the latest expansion of its retail investment funds range.
New Ireland has signed a deal with BNY Mellon Asset Management which will see it distribute the BNY Mellon global real return fund to investors. A New Ireland spokeswoman said it looked outside the group when seeking more specialised funds.
Shell/PetroChina buy Arrow Energy
Royal Dutch Shell moved a step closer to shifting the balance of its production in favour of natural gas over oil following a joint Aus$3.5 billion (€2.4 billion) acquisition of Arrow Energy. The deal with PetroChina will give Shell access to Arrow Energy's holdings of coal-seam gas reserves, while conventional supplies are declining or off limits in other parts of the world.
Shell is focusing investment in Australia, the Gulf of Mexico and US on gas found in hard-to- reach rock formations. As much as 40 per cent of the company's capital spending in the next few years has been earmarked for the Asia-Pacific region.
Shell, which has been adding more gas than oil to its resources since 2005, expects the share of gas as a proportion of output to rise to 52 per cent in 2012.
Shell and PetroChina will pay A$4.70 a share for Arrow's Australian business, 5.6 per cent more than an initial A$4.45 offer that was rejected and 35 per cent above the stock's level before Arrow was first approached on March 8th. – (Bloomberg)
Call for economic devolution in North
The Northern Ireland Executive must turn its attention to economic devolution and find imaginative ways to raise more revenue locally in the light of the North's deteriorating fiscal position, a leading economist is warning.
Mike Smith, head of economics at the University of Ulster, says now that political devolution is almost complete the Executive needs to secure greater local economic policy autonomy.
