In Short

A round-up of today's other stories in brief.

Diamond firm to sell from African mine

West African Diamonds, the Dublin-based exploration company focused on Sierra Leone and Guinea, plans to start selling the gold and diamonds extracted from its Plant 11 project in Sierra Leone as soon as February.

Speaking yesterday at a presentation in Dublin following the company's annual general meeting in London on Thursday, executive deputy chairman James Campbell said production at Plant 11 should reach the full target of 150 tonnes per hour by the end of the year. In total, the plant is expected to produce one million tonnes a year for seven years, equal to net revenue of $2.5 million (€1.7 million) a year.

The shares rose 7 per cent to 26p on London's Aim on Thursday but were unchanged yesterday.

Motorola chief steps down

Ed Zander, the embattled chief executive of Motorola, has stepped down from his post as the mobile phone company struggles to contend with a slump in market share.

Mr Zander, who rode a revival of Motorola through the launch of the Razr mobile phone before the company once again faltered, has been under pressure from shareholders, including Carl Icahn, the billionaire activist Wall Street investor, to resign for almost a year.

Motorola's share of the global mobile phone business has tumbled from about 21 per cent to 13 per cent in the latest quarter. - (Financial Times service)

Providence secures $250m funding

Oil and gas group Providence Resources has agreed a new $250 million (€170 million) funding facility with Macquarie Bank to finance the ongoing development of its projects.

In a statement to the Irish Stock Exchange yesterday, Providence said the new funding would replace an earlier arrangement with Macquarie made in February last year. Under the latest agreement, $25 million will be made available immediately to supply general working capital, fund the balance of the acquisition of the Singleton oil field, and provide funds to drill and complete wells on existing assets. The remaining $225 million will be made available at Macquarie's discretion to expand the company's asset base.

Dell suffers 15% fall in share price

Dell's share price had its biggest fall in seven years yesterday, falling as much as 15 per cent after its third-quarter earnings disappointed investors and founder Michael Dell said he would boost spending to expand sales through retailers.

Dell reported third-quarter revenues of $15.64 billion (€10.64 billion) on Thursday night and a profit of $766 million, or 34 cents a share, slightly below consensus forecasts.

The expansion of its retail presence, acquisitions and job cuts would increase future costs, it said.

Dell employs almost 4,500 people in Limerick and Dublin. Despite a global reorganisation, the US company has shed just 100 jobs from its Irish workforce.

This week's results broke a two-quarter streak of beating analysts' predictions. - (Bloomberg)

McInerney starts share buyback

Homebuilder McInerney yesterday announced the start of a limited share buyback programme and said it believed the house building sector in Britain and Ireland was undervalued.

In a statement, it revealed it had spent €720,000 buying back 600,000 of its own shares, all of which will be cancelled.