A round of this week's other finance stories in brief

African Diamonds in licence dispute

Irish exploration firm African Diamonds is in dispute with partner company De Beers over plans to bring its Botswana AK6 diamond mine joint venture into production.

The joint-venture company, Boteti, received the terms for a mining licence from the government of Botswana on June 17th.

African Diamonds has a 28 per cent stake in Boteti, De Beers owns 71 per cent, and private Botswana firm Wati holds the remaining 1 per cent. African Diamonds says both it and Wati are happy to accept the licence terms but it claims De Beers is not.

It says De Beers wants to delay the project and is claiming power supply issues are compromising the economics of the project.

African Diamonds and Wati reject this and have presented an independent study showing strong economic viability. It is understood that the licence terms are not in line with how De Beers would normally buy diamonds from a mine and this could also be an issue.

One of the terms of the mining licence requires the diamonds from the mine be auctioned in Botswana.

African Diamonds believes revenue from an auction process may be up to 40 per cent greater than that estimated by De Beers.

African Diamonds is controlled by John Teeling and is listed on London's AIM and the Botswana Stock Exchange.

AIB and B of I to 'remain profitable'

Ireland's two largest banks, AIB and Bank of Ireland, will remain comfortably profitable throughout the economic downturn, ratings agency Standard Poor's (SP) has predicted.

However, the agency warned that downgrades of European banks would increase over the next 18 months due to concern over capital losses and slower economic growth.

In a report on the European banking sector, SP said Ireland, Britain and Spain would experience the sharpest "economic adjustments" due to falling house prices.

Hibernian names new chairman

Insurance group Hibernian has appointed David Simpson, a founding partner of accountancy firm Simpson Xavier (now BDO Simpson Xavier), as its chairman.

Mr Simpson, an independent director of Hibernian since October 2007, succeeds Dónal Byrne, who will continue as chairman of life and investment business at Norwich Union International, which is part of Hibernian's parent company, Aviva.

Dragon Oil says production up 37%

Irish energy firm Dragon Oil has reported a 37 per cent increase in gross production for the first half of the year.

In a trading statement, it said it produced an average 38,482 barrels of oil per day (bopd), compared to 28,321 bopd in the first half of 2007.

Closing-down sale at Habitat

Habitat, the furniture retailer that has gone into receivership in Ireland, is opening its doors in Dublin for a four-day closing-down sale, starting at lunchtime today. The company's Irish franchise, owned by Conai Designs, has been instructed by its receiver, George Maloney of Baker Tilly Ryan Glennon, to offload its remaining stock. Discounts of up to 80 per cent are expected.

Habitat closed down in May when the housing downturn and slowing economy sent furniture sales into decline.

Venture capitalists invest 48.5m

Venture capital funds backed by Enterprise Ireland invested €48.5 million in Irish firms last year. A total of 103 investments were made by funds that participated in the development agency's Seed and Venture Capital Programme.