Sunday Business Post (January 1^st)
There is plenty of speculation around various topics such as the effect of Trump, the triggering of Article 50 and Brexit, European elections, Ireland’s tax policy, the full flotation of AIB , relations with the EU, Irish industrial relations unrest, will the government last 2017, housing crisis, terrorism  etc. Nobody predicted Brexit or Trump last year so all predictions are to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Róisín Burke predicts that the next generation of a lot of successful business people will make their names heard over the years ahead including Goodman, Naughton, Mulryan, Grehan, Cosgrave, Ronan, Comer, Cooney, Buckley and Doherty.

The Government will be watching the December retail figures very closely; in the nine months to September, the income from VAT was €410m behind target. The still unexplained corporation tax windfalls more than compensated for the VAT shorfall.

It seems like the last big action required to close the IBRC book and finalise the liquidation is to settle with Sean Quinn and family. Reading Tom Lyons article, it appears to be that the pragmatic thing to do is leave the family with some domestic assets and drop all actions in return for a consensual sale of the remainder of the assets which have proved tricky for IBRC to unlock. However, such a settlement, regardless of commercials, will undoubtedly be politically tricky.

Tony O’Reilly junior has stepped down from the board of Fitzwilton ending the O’Reilly family’s involvement on the board after Tony senior stepped down last year. Kevin McGoran and David Roxburgh are the remaining directors. It was the holding company for a number of investments and only has one or two legacy holdings now.

Fergus Clancy has stepped down as executive chairman of the Mater Private Group and the role will not be filled going forward. He will remain on the board and is the biggest non-corporate shareholder. Sean Fitzpatrick of CapVest is the chairman of the holding company.

67 transactions were notified to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission in 2016 compared to 78 in 2015 supporting the view that 2016 was a slower year for M&A. Deals selected for individual mention by the article include:

• News Corp’s acquisition of three Irish radio stations;
• INM’s proposed acquisition of the Celtic Media Group;
• UTV’s sale to TV3;
• Blackstone’s takeover of Blanchardstown;
• Panda’s takeover of Greenstar.

Only three transactions have been completely blocked since 2003: Kingspan/Xtratherm, IBM/Schlumberger and Kerry/Breeo.

Former senior official in Department of Foreign affairs and Irish ambassador in Canada, Ray Bassett, has suggested that we need to be willing to consider exiting the EU if the terms offered in any Brexit deal disadvantage us.

Marlet, the M&G fund which previously traded as New Generation, has halted the sale of its portfolio of residential sites. It apparently went to the market looking for €325m but best bids were well short of that and they now intend to develop out some sites.

Billy Kane’s Finance Ireland intends to launch a mortgage product later this year or in 2018. It has grown an estimated share of 12% of the car market from a standing start. Kane is interviewed in the Business Post.

Group turnover at Bio-Medical Research which makes the slendertone products declined by €2.6m to €48.5m in 2015.

Eamon Dunphy is interviewed in the Business Post by Fearghal O’Connor.

Sunday Indo (December 25^th)

In a Sunday Independent survey of analysts, David McCann, executive chairman of Fyffes, was voted the best-performing boss of an Irish listed company in 2016. The recently announced deal to sell the company to Sumitomo Corporation for €751m represents a 37% premium above what had been the company’s all-time high share price prior to the announcement of the takeover. Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary was in second place, with CRH’s Albert Manifold, Kingspan’s Gene Murtagh and FBD’s Fiona Muldoon also receiving votes in the best performer category.

Guinness has been voted Ireland’s ‘most appealing sponsor’ by sponsorship consultant Onside.

“Permanent TSB is challenging a decision to grant developer Johnny Ronan’s RGRE permission to alter a premises on Grafton Street in Dublin from financial services use to retail use.” The bank is arguing that the building has been in use as a bank for over 40 years and changing it to a retail unit would reduce the mix of shops and facilities on the street.

Mayo property developer Martin Birrane is aiming to increase revenues at his Kildare racetrack, Mondello Park, to €4m next year on the back of a new agreement with BMW which will see six of its fastest new cars based there.

As well as a vote on the best-performing bosses of Irish listed companies, the Sunday Independent analysts’ survey also had the following results:

• Bank of Ireland was predicted to be the top performing Irish stock in 2017, with engineering firm Mincon in joint second place with Ryanair.
• Brexit was viewed by the vast majority as having a bigger impact than Trump on the Irish economy in 2017.
• The average estimate for Irish GDP growth in 2017 is forecast at 3%.
• The average estimate for global GDP growth in 2017 is forecast at 3.5%.
• Healthcare and gold were joint winners of the ‘sectors to watch in 2017’.

Sunday Indo (January 1^st)

“Fourteen former partners of Bloxham Stockbrokers are being pursued by the family of a ward of court which is concerned the man’s funds were “unduly depleted” under Bloxham’s management.”

The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) has received enquiries from a number of television stations considering possible relocations to Ireland over concerns of the effect on licenses to broadcast across the EU due to Brexit. Industry experts believe that Dublin may be an attractive alternative for such companies, particularly subsidiaries of American broadcast organisations.

This week’s interview is with Michael O’Keeffe, chief executive of the BAI.

Richard Curran discusses his outlook for 2017.

Goodbody Stockbrokers has raised €10m from private clients for an SME-focused fund which will invest in businesses under the Employment and Investment Incentive Scheme (EIIS). The fund, which is managed through a joint venture between Goodbody and Baker Tilly Hughes Blake, is a successor to a similar fund which has already deployed almost all of its capital, including investments this year in transport company McArdle Skeath and nursing home business Kiltrough.

Jonathan Cosgrave of The Carlyle Group states that the Carlyle Cardinal Ireland Fund (CCI), a joint venture between The Carlyle Group and Cardinal Capital, is targeting two or three deals in 2017. They have been very active and have made seven investments since inception of the €292m fund. Its investments to date include AA Ireland, Carroll Cuisine, Payzone and Learning Pool. The fund has c.€150m remaining to invest and Cosgrave highlights that increased understanding of private equity investment among businesses in Ireland has resulted in higher numbers of enquiries from business owners. Although mid-market deal activity in 2016 was down c.20% on a very strong 2015, Cosgrave is bullish on finding attractive opportunities for the deployment of the remainder of the fund.

“Irish-founded and Dublin-headquartered modular home builder and solar energy developer WELink Group has signed a €2.9bn joint venture to build over 25,000 energy-efficient modular homes, five new factories and an R&D centre in Britain over the next five years.” The founders of the company, Barry O’Neill, a former DCC executive, and Breandan MacAmhlaoibh, are both Dubliners. The privately-owned firm is also developing €500m of new solar energy installations, with a further €800m planned, as well as plans to enter the US market. The business’ key partner is China National Buildings Material, a state-owned firm with $85bn of net assets.

John McGee discusses the outlook for M&A in the global media industry, forecasting that 2017 levels will exceed the strong performance of 2016, particularly in the traditional media space.

Sean Gallagher’s piece is with Ken Harbourne, managing director of recruitment firm Wallace Myers International. Founded less than six years ago, the company now employs 34 staff and has a turnover of over €5.5m.

Louise McBride has a feature with Mark Ganly, chief executive of Contego Sports, a Galway sports technology company which has developed headgear to tackle the growing issue of concussion in rugby. Ganly founded the business in 2014 with his partner Sandra, having already been developing hurling and camogie helmets since 2010 through his company MARC helmets.

Dearbhail McDonald predicts that the number of enforcement proceedings taken by overseas investment funds and their affiliates such as Cerberus, Goldman Sachs and CarVal against private individuals will increase substantially in 2017. In particular, those with “small” debts of up to €5m are expected to feel the brunt of this activity, with many of such people being professionals – the “doctors and dentists” loan book, as it has been dubbed.

Sunday Times (December 25^th)

The Sunday Times business team give their A-Z 2016 business overview, which covers last year’s big news, the Apple ruling, Brexit, the major examinerships, hotel sales, various NAMA controversies, Trump and foreign investment funds being the major talking points.

Paddy Power Betfair has won a contract to run gambling operations for the government of New Zealand. They are understood to have beaten competition from rival Ladbrokes Coral to run a fixed-odds betting service for the state-owned New Zealand Racing Board.

Cormac Lucey reminds us that out of all the remaining EU members, Ireland is uniquely vulnerable to any economic tensions that might result from stalled Brexit negotiations.

Sunday Times (January 1^st)

Allied Irish Bank has offered to absorb foreign exchange losses suffered by investors who invested in AIB’s Alpha Japan fund, the fund was launched in 2007 and raised over €128m.

Brian Carey’s agenda column this week:

• Simon Coveney passed the decision on what to do with Airbnb over to an expert committee which is due to report back early this year. There is a fear the short-term letting site is soaking up a lot of rental properties.
• Weak sterling, currently 10% lower than at the start of 2016, seems to continue to propel a gathering momentum of Irish consumers shopping online in the UK. Ecommerce activity, based on debit and credit card transactions, rose from €918m to €1.2bn in the first nine months of the year in 2016 compared with the same period in 2015, according to the Central Bank.
• A collapse in investment returns means that almost half the country’s 280 credit unions are at risk of losing money in the coming years. Weak demand for loans has left credit unions with up to €11bn of surplus funds, which they must invest with banks or other financial institutions.

A scheme of arrangement drawn up by the examiner of Celtic Linen, will see the Department of Social Protection take a hit of €1.26m on its debt. AIB, the Revenue and 170 unsecured creditors will also take significant hits under a court approved scheme of arrangement. Causeway Capital has made an investment of €1.4m to rescue the company from examinership.

Cormac Lucey makes 15 predictions for 2017, some with a humorous tone. He suggests 2017 may be the year Dublin acquires the nickname “Canary Dwarf” as tenants react to overpriced and undersized office space.

Portwest, a Co Mayo maker of workwear and outdoor, clothing made a pre-tax profit of €17.3m last year and had turnover of €126.4m.

The owner of the Tivoli Theatre in Dublin has sought planning permission to demolish it and build a 298-unit aparthotel on the site.

Profits at CBRE doubled last year to €6.1m.

The online broker raisin.com that offers better returns by depositing savers’ money with banks in other European countries has been told to stop taking new business by the Central Bank of Ireland. The Central Bank holds the opinion raisin needs a license under the Investment Intermediaries Act, raisin is now looking to resolve the issue.

Kenmare Resources will have to pay a South African engineering company €4.75m as part of an arbitration to settle a dispute over a mine in Mozambique.

The group behind Marco Pierre White’s two Dublin restaurants, Fitzers Holdings, returned to profit in 2015 and recorded a profit of €1.4m.

Tetra Ireland Communications, which operates the country’s emergency services radio network, booked €8.5m in pre-tax profits in 2015 – a fourfold increase on the previous year.

Mobile Travel Technologies (MTT), a Dublin company acquired by Travelport, a US travel technology group in 2015 for €55m, made a profit of €2.7m in 2015.

Nick Webb’s inside track column this week:

• Meetings in Finance minister Michael Noonan’s diary pre-budget included, Michael Stanley chief executive of Cairn Homes, Feargal O’Rourke PwC and Bill Conway co-founder of Carlyle private equity group.
• U2’s Bono has teamed up with Ryanair chairman David Bonderman to invest in TPG in Rise, a new social investment firm.
• Philippe Brodeur, an entrepreneur who helped start TV3 before creating its online presence TV3.ie, is closing a funding round for Overcast HQ, a cloud-based video collaboration firm that has been describes as the “Google Docs for video”.
• Dominic Silvester, the financial services tycoon has set up a new specialist reinsurance firm called KaylaRe.

Brian Carey and Niall Brady’s business focus piece is on the rejuvenated Irish motor trade.

Carey and Brady also have a very interesting article on Eugene O’Reilly’s Hyundai Ireland. Hyundai Ireland sold 15,435 cars in Ireland last year and now account for 10.56% of the market. O’Reilly took on the Hyundai distribution in Ireland from a UK company in 1994, when just 50 Hyundais were sold in Ireland. In December, the low profile O’Reilly also scooped €13m from the sale of the Irish Europcar franchise. He owned 48% of the car hire company, which was sold back to Europcar Group.

The business interview is with Alan Quane managing director of Sullivan’s taphouse, the new Kilkenny brewery.

The Sunday Times business journalists provide their share tips for 2017, Dalata, Bank of Ireland, Draper Esprit, Restaurant Group and Unilever are amongst the picks.

Sandra O’Connell collects the New Year resolutions of a snap shot of entrepreneurs across the country in her small business piece, which is an interesting read.