Other finance stories in brief

Eddie Hobbs's firm extends funding date

Brendan Investments, the property firm of which television personality Eddie Hobbs is a director, has extended the deadline for its first fund to November 30th. Managing director Vincent Regan said the company had exceeded the minimum €10 million subscription level by the original closing date yesterday and was now in a position to commit to its desired commercial property purchases.

The firm said the deadline had been extended because of "high levels of demand" from pension investors. The number of investors to date is not known, but the average investment is significantly more than the €5,000 minimum.

S3 takes over Portuguese firm

Irish technology firm Silicon and Software Systems (S3) has acquired Acacia Semiconductor a maker of specialist data converter products.

Acacia is based in Portugal and employs 10 people. It was spun out of a Lisbon-based academic research group in 2003.

Financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed. S3 develops software and designs electronic systems which it licenses to consumer electronics makers and other customers.

Moonduster deadline passes

The deadline for the remaining bidder for Irish Continental Group (ICG), Moonduster, to make a move to take over the company passed unmarked last night, meaning that both it and rival Aella are now precluded from making another offer for 12 months.

Moonduster, a consortium comprising Philip Lynch's investment vehicle One51 and the Doyle Shipping group, had until the end of yesterday to make a formal offer for the ferry operator, which has been a takeover target since March. It is now believed that one of the two parties may seek to link up with property developer Liam Carroll.

New licences for African Diamonds

AIM-listed African Diamonds said its Kukama Mining subsidiary has been awarded three new prospecting licences close to the Orapa region of Botswana, where the group already has two licences.

Call for more open recruitment

Irish businesses need to adopt a wider and more open recruitment policy to reflect the 17 per cent of non-Irish nationals that make up the current workforce, Chambers Ireland said yesterday.

David Pierce, president of Chambers Ireland, said there is a particular shortage of non-Irish nationals at upper management levels.