A round-up of today's other business news in brief
CPL buys Whelan assets
IEX-listed recruitment firm CPL Resources has bought the business and assets of Kenny Whelan Associates from the receiver appointed to the Newcourt group, for an undisclosed sum.
The Cork-based recruitment firm, which specialises in sourcing staff for multinationals in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical devices sectors, was acquired by Newcourt in 2006.
David Carson of Deloitte was appointed as receiver to Newcourt earlier this month, following the failure of ongoing efforts to restructure its € 36 million debt.
In a statement to the stock market yesterday, CPL said that it believes that the acquisition will secure the position of employees and contractors of Kenny Whelan.
Eircom moves into mobile broadband
Eircom has entered the mobile broadband market with the launch of a service that will operate over the network of Meteor, its mobile subsidiary. Meteor currently offers mobile broadband in Cork city and the greater Dublin area. Eircom is charging €19.99 a month for the service, which also includes free access to Eircom’s 1,000 Wi-Fi hotspots, a 10 GByte download allowance and access to online video content from Setanta Sports.
DVD slump hits Hollywood profits
The film industry's revenues fell by more than $2.6 billion in 2008 as sales of standard DVDs tumbled, according to a new report from Screen Digest, a research group.
Sony's Blu-ray won the Hollywood format war at the beginning of 2008 after a majority of studios said they preferred the technology to Toshiba's HD-DVD format. But while sales rose fourfold to $482m last year, Blu-ray has been unable to make up ground lost by falling sales of standard DVDs. Global revenues from standard DVD and Blu-ray rentals and sales were $26.4 billion in 2008, with two- thirds of that figure coming from DVD sales, which fell almost 5 per cent. – (Copyright Financial Times Limited 2009)
Lenders to retain 5% of loans risk
The Obama administration plans to require original lenders to retain 5 per cent of the credit risk of loans that are later securitised as part of its proposal to revamp financial regulations, a US Treasury spokesman confirmed yesterday.
The plan, which is to be unveiled tomorrow, would also prohibit those lenders from directly or indirectly hedging the risk they are required to retain.
The administration plans to propose changes to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) to eliminate “gain on sale” accounting that would require lenders to more accurately reflect income over time.
– (Reuters)
Holcim to buy rival firm's Aussie trade
Swiss cement maker Holcim will tap shareholders for around $1.9 billion of fresh funds to clinch an opportunistic deal for the Australian business of debt-laden Mexican rival Cemex.
Holcim said it will buy the unit for A$2.02 billion – (Reuters)
MKO Partners
In yesterday’s edition, it was stated that MKO Partners was holding a seminar on the “Business of Residential Property Rental” on Thursday, In fact, the seminar will take place on Wednesday in the RDS, Dublin from 7.15-8.30am.
