Planet Business

LAURA SLATTERYlooks back at the week in business

Pay Day

IIrish Continental Group (ICG) chief executive Eamonn Rothwell saw his pay drop by almost 25 per cent last year – a year that “provided the most challenging trading conditions seen in Ireland for many decades”. But business cant have been too disastrous in the roll-on roll-off (RoRo) game, as Rothwell still pocketed more than €1 million. Meanwhile, higher levels of global trade, as exemplified by Dublin Port’s 8 per cent rise in first-quarter freight volumes, bodes well for ICG’s executive pay in 2010, and that’s before the volcano-assisted passenger traffic bonanza is considered. According to Goodbody Stockbrokers analyst Dan Cavanagh, ICG will be the “prime beneficiary” of the recovery in ship-borne trade given its slot times and market shares.

€1.3bn

– the book value that forestry agency Coillte gives to the 7 per cent of Irish land that it owns.

"One shitty deal"

– How one Goldman Sachs executive described the $1 billion collateralised debt obligation (CDO) it was flogging to investors in a June 2007 e-mail to a colleague. Goldman’s “shitty deals” are now under investigation in the US.

Status Update

Political page-turners: Copies of the Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem manifestos are outselling Harry Potter, with sales up 160 per cent on the last election, says Waterstones.

Go to gate: Dublin airport's second terminal, due to take test flights from October, is "by no means a Taj Mahal", says the DAA – which is good as the Taj Mahal is a mausoleum.

High esteem: Google has been named the company with the best reputation in Ireland, according to a new ranking by RepTrak. How will it live it down?

The Question

Will the Germans ever be able to go on holiday in Greece again?

Diplomatic relations have been somewhat strained between Germany and Greece of late, although as Germany has something that Greece wants - the code to the European Unions bailout safe - the Greek government is doing its best to stay polite.

Even without a regional election looming, German chancellor Angela Merkel can, of course, be expected to hum and haw a little before signing over the EU’s contribution to Greece’s rescue package.

Sharper provocation has come in the form of outspoken Greek aid critic Frank Schaeffler of Germanys Free Democratic Party, Merkel’s junior coalition partner.

Schaeffler in March said the Greeks should sell off their islands to resolve their deficit, a suggestion satirised by German publication Bild as “we give you cash, you give us Corfu”.

Last week, Schaeffler insisted that Greece should be ready to quit the euro zone if it cant push through austerity measures, while Bild has also helpfully hinted that the Greeks could assist in its economic recovery by getting up earlier in the morning.

Germanys mixed signals put such pressure on Greek borrowing rates this week that it officially became safer to invest in Iraq than in Greece.

The contagion in the bond markets then pushed up borrowing costs in other euro zone countries, including Ireland, which led to OECD secretary general Angel Gurria to observe colourfully that the problem was “like Ebola”. If the Greek virus does infect the rest of Europe, there is only one immunologist in town and her name is Dr Merkel.