In Short

A round-up of other business news in brief

State publishes bank guarantee legislation

The Government has published legislation giving effect to the deposit guarantee scheme announced last September which increased the State’s protection on deposits from €20,000 to €100,000.

The Financial Services (Deposit Guarantee Scheme) Bill covers not just the seven guaranteed financial institutions but all credit institutions authorised in the State, including credit unions where deposits were not previously guaranteed by the Government.

The Bill reduces the minimum time period within which a depositor must make a claim from three months to 20 working days. The Government plans to have the regulations in place by June 30th to meet an EU deadline.

Diageo ready to serve cocktails

Drinks group Diageo will introduce a range of ready-to-serve Smirnoff cocktails for the Irish market next week, days after it started selling a lighter version of Guinness stout in the US to revive sales.

Mojitos vodka cocktails will go on sale in Irish off-licences on May 5th, executives said.

The new cocktails include Caiprioskas vodka. The drinks are packaged in 70cl cocktail shaker-shaped bottles and will sell for €14.99 each.

The results of a six-month trial will determine whether the range is introduced across Europe. The cocktails are already sold in the US, where sales rose 48 per cent last year.

The lighter -tasting bottled Guinness was Diageo’s first new stout in the US since 1966 when it went on sale this month.

HMV forecasts full-year profit

British music and books retailer HMV Group has forecast full-year profit at the top end of market hopes, boosted by market share gains following the demise of Woolworths and Zavvi.

The 88-year-old firm also announced today a concession partnership with France Telecom’s Orange to offer mobile phones and services, and a deal with Curzon Cinemas to test digital cinemas.

These developments, along with a plan to enter the live music market announced in January, continue to reposition the HMV brand into a broad entertainment retailer. – (Reuters)

Steelmaker reports first quarter loss

ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker, reported a wider-than-anticipated loss in the first quarter as falling metals prices forced the company to cut the value of its inventories.

The net loss in the first quarter was $1.06 billion, or 78 cents a share, from net income of $2.37 billion, or $1.68, a year earlier, the Luxembourg-based company said in a statement.

Sales slumped 49 per cent to $15.1 billion. “This is a bit of a shocker all-round,” Nick Hatch, an analyst at ING Bank NV in London, said.

“Pretty much all the main numbers are at the bottom end of the range or below. It looks as though the rest of the year will be extremely difficult.”

ArcelorMittal, formed through the takeover of Arcelor SA by Mittal Steel in 2006, cut output as the world economy shrank and demand fell. – (Bloomberg)

Santander's first-quarter profit falls 5%

The euro zone's largest bank, Santander, has posted a 5 per cent fall in first-quarter net profit to €2.096 billion, with provisions against loan losses eating into the bottom line.

It said net interest revenue rose 22.2 per cent to €6.23 billion, while operating profit rose 12 per cent to €9.454 billion.

Bad loans as a percentage of total lending rose to 2.49 per cent at the end of the first quarter, from 2.04 per cent at the end of 2008. – (Reuters)

Royal Dutch Shell hit by oil-price falls

Europe's biggest oil company, Royal Dutch Shell, has posted a sharp decline in quarterly profits following falls in the price of oil.

Shell said first-quarter crude and natural-gas production fell 3.6 per cent because of reduced Nigerian output and Opec restrictions.

Shell's profit fell to $3.3 billion (€2.5 billion), down 58 per cent from the same period a year ago and 31 per cent lower than the previous quarter.

The price of crude oil has recently been at about $50 a barrel, down from a record high of $147 last July.