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

Property firms back oversight overseas

The organisers of an investment property exhibition taking place in Citywest, Dublin this weekend have welcomed calls on the Government to regulate companies that sell overseas property.

Paul O'Loughlin Kennedy, the event director, said it was essential that there was proper regulation of the industry to protect individuals.

Solicitor Tom McGrath said people faced many potential pitfalls when investing abroad. "There have been cases where properties have been sold when planning permission has not even been granted or deposits taken on developments where the developer doesn't even own the land," he said.

First Active fund locks in capital

First Active has introduced a new actively managed investment product that gives full capital security at maturity over a term of five years and eleven months.

The First Active Protected Portfolio Investment is split between equities, bonds, hedge funds and commodities. Over each six-month period, the basket of funds is weighted in favour of the best performing funds over the previous six-month period.

Each time the value of the investment grows by 10 per cent above its initial level, half of the growth is locked in. The minimum investment is €5,000.

RaboDirect cuts fee for equity fund

Online bank RaboDirect has cut the entry fee on the Henderson Horizon Pan European Equity Fund, its "fund of the month" for April.

The entry fee is 0.25 per cent, reduced from 0.75 per cent, for the month of April.