It's a busy morning on the Irish corporate front with figures out from CRH, while AIB, Glanbia and Tullow Oil all hold agms.
Glanbia directors are expected to come under fire at its agm in Kilkenny over the price it pays farmers for milk and how it funds various supplier support schemes. The company last month cut its base milk price by 3 cent a litre amid warnings of oversupply in the marketplace, undercutting the price offered by rival processors.
Apple will place the first tranche of its €13 billion Irish tax bill in an escrow account next month following the signing of a legal agreement between the Irish Government and the US tech giant. It is anticipated that Apple will make a series of unspecified payments into the account starting in May with the full amount expected to be recovered by the end of September.
Cliff Taylor advises, however, that we should heed the line from Father Ted: the money is only resting in our account. "I wouldn't start planning a second Metro line, a replacement for the M50 or a Dart to Dingle. " He warns that as this case "involves competition law being applied to a case involving tax, there is little precedent here for the commission's claim".
Investors took fright at reports from the UK that a review into fixed-odds betting terminals (FOTBs) is likely to set a maximum stake level of just £2. For Paddy Power Betfair, it meant a share price fall that wiped around €206 million of its market capitalisation, while William Hill saw its share price close down 12.7 per cent on the day.
The proposed acquisition of the Irish Examiner by The Irish Times DAC has been cleared by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) and will now be referred to the Minister for Communications for approval on media plurality grounds.
In her London Briefing column, Fiona Walsh assess the digital meltdown at TSB and the fines which will likely follow, while Conor Pope reports on a coincidental computer issue atUlster Bank, which has been attributed to human error.
In commercial property one of the largest residential investments offered for sale in Dublin in recent years along with a further development site may well set a record price. Agents are guiding a price of € 135 million for more than half of the completed apartments and the adjoining site at The Grange in Stillorgan, Co Dublin, which has been under construction since 2004.
