Current Account: It's just a week since property developer Sean Dunne completed what is believed to be the biggest land deal in the history of the State when he paid €260 million for 5.5 acres in Ballsbridge, Dublin that belonged to Jury's Doyle Hotel Group.
The site is currently home to two hotels, Jury's Ballsbridge and Jury's Towers. But hotels are going to be very much a thing of the past on the site. Dunne plans to build a high-rise apartment complex there.
However, if this doesn't work out, he will not have the option of building a hotel, or anything that even resembles a hotel, on the land. Dunne and his company, Padholme, have agreed not to build "a hotel, motel, inn, guesthouse, aparthotel or hostel" on the site or allow it to be used for any of these purposes.
The clause in his deal with Jury's is a restrictive covenant - legalese for somebody formally agreeing not to do something. It's probably worthwhile for both parties to bear in mind that courts don't necessarily enforce all restrictive covenants in perpetuity.
Trust me, I'm a banker
The great and the rich gathered in a hall in the Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin, during the week for the launch of Ivor Kenny's latest book, Achievers, which features the successes of such high-fliers as Dermot Desmond, Sir Anthony O'Reilly, Anglo Irish chairman Seán FitzPatrick, former Unilever chief executive Niall Fitzgerald, Michael Smurfit, NTR's Tom Roche, Ken Whitaker, Brody Sweeney of O'Brien's Sandwich Bars and Moya Doherty of Riverdance fame.
AIB chairman Dermot Gleeson SC entertained the gathering with a chatty address of medium length. The AIB chairman took the opportunity to voice his opposition to excessive regulation and, in particular, the proposed directors' compliance statement initiative.
The best form of corporate governance, he said, was a "seamless web of deserved mutual trust" between regulator and regulated. He was against the modern tendency to introduce more and more laws and cited the directors' compliance statement initiative.
Of course, there are those who might argue that it is the very breakdown of Gleeson's preferred model of "deserved mutual trust" between businesses and those regulating them, not least in the financial services sector, that has led to the unwanted spate of legislation both here and in the US.
Four Courts insecurity
The Courts Service, in its wisdom, has decided to fund a new security system down in Dublin's Four Courts.
Only people with the requisite identity cards are now allowed access through most entrances to the complex, with members of the public being asked to enter by way of the Ormond Quay vehicle and pedestrian entrance.
Current Account only discovered this when stopped while trying to enter by the Bridewell entrance earlier this week. "You can't come in this way," said a security man.
"I'm on the way in to cover a trial for The Irish Times," said Current Account. "Ah, go on then," said the security man. No ID was requested.
Later, trying to return to the complex, a security man at the entrance on Chancery Place said all members of the public had to go in through the Ormond Quay gate. Sure enough, down at that gate members of the public were making their way into the courts complex - not a security man or woman to be seen!
Keep borrowing, please
AIB Capital Markets global treasury team must have been a little surprised yesterday to see Goodbody Stockbrokers' Dermot O'Leary grabbing the headlines with his prediction that personal debt levels will reach 160 per cent of income by 2008.
The Global Treasury team - led by John Beggs - came out with their own analysis of the economy yesterday in which they also looked at personal debt. They came to the only slightly less sensational conclusion that debt would top 150 per cent of income. However, their thunder was well and truly stolen by Goodbody Stockbrokers, which is very much seen as a vassal state of the Capital Markets empire.
The good news is both economists take the view that, despite the rather alarming projections, there really is no good reason to stop borrowing from banks, such as, em, AIB.
