Your business week: Financial wellbeing summit takes place in Dublin

Abercrombie and Hewlett Packard Enterprise to report; and reinvigorating O’Connell St

Abercrombie & Fitch is due to report results on Thursday. Photograph:   Mike Segar/Reuters
Abercrombie & Fitch is due to report results on Thursday. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters

Monday 26

Results: Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Indicators: German business climate (Aug), current conditions and expectations (Aug); US durable goods orders (Jul).

Tuesday 27

Indicators: UK finance mortgage approvals (Jul); German GDP (Q2); US house price index (Jun), consumer confidence (Aug).

Wednesday 28

Results: Build-A-Bear Workshop, Campbell Soup, Tiffany.

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Indicators: Irish retail sales (Jun); Euro zone loan growth and money supply (Jul); German consumer confidence (Sep),

Meetings: Irish Academy of Management Annual Conference (National College of Ireland, Mayor Street Lower, Dublin 1).

Thursday 29

Results: Abercrombie & Fitch, Dell Technologies.

Indicators: Irish overseas travel (Jul); Euro zone business confidence (Aug), consumer confidence (Aug), consumer inflation expectations (Aug), economic, industrial and services sentiment (Aug); German unemployment (Aug), import prices (Jul); inflation (Aug); US GDP (Q2), wholesale inventories (Jul), corporate profits (Q2), PCE prices (Q2).

Meetings: Equity Advisory Clinic with Inter Trade Ireland (Dogpatch Labs, Custom House Quays, Dublin 1); ClearChoice Conference on linking financial and mental health (Citywest Hotel and Conference Centre, Saggart, Co Dublin).

Financial wellbeing summit

On Thursday, Minister for Health Simon Harris will feature among a number of speakers at a major financial services conference. It is not as misplaced an appearance as it might seem – the 2019 ClearChoice Summit is to focus on the relationship between financial and mental wellbeing.

“Financial circumstances have a direct impact on personal, physical and mental health and we as financial advisers can provide peace of mind to consumers by ensuring that they have the right type and level of cover through their working life and retirement,” conference organisers said ahead of this week’s event.

In a world where the importance of psychological wellbeing has become more and more of an issue, it is perhaps unsurprising to see it pop up in the most a-typical of circumstances, including finance.

“There is a lack of focus on money and finance,” ClearChoice says. “Financial wellbeing affects everybody differently . . . for anyone that is suffering financial woes, they are more than likely not going to seek financial advice and help from the right people because of the stigma that is attached.”

Mr Harris will open the conference and address how financial planning can help to ease any stress.

Friday 30

Meetings: Dublin Chamber's Better Dublin Briefing: Renewing the Heart of Dublin (Dublin Chamber, 7 Clare Street, Dublin 2).

Indicators: Euro zone unemployment (Jul), inflation (Aug); UK consumer confidence (Aug), nationwide housing prices (Aug), net lending to individuals (Jul), consumer credit (Jul), mortgage lending and approvals (Jul); German retail sales (Jul); US personal income and spending (Jul).

Reinvigorat

ing O’Connell Street

Dublin’s business community will be briefed on future plans for the transformation of O’Connell Street and long-running ambitions to reinvigorate one of the city’s commercial centres.

Friday's event is organised by Dublin Chamber with a nod to one of its members, the British property group Hammerson who are behind the development.

Exactly what they propose to do with the site – a stubborn question mark, hanging perennially over the built fabric of Dublin long before Hammerson arrived – remains unclear. In May it emerged the developer had decided to scrap a pre-existing planning permission for a giant €1.25 billion shopping mall many felt was inappropriate for the area.

Instead, it vowed to re-established the giant thoroughfare as Dublin’s “pre-eminent street” with proposals for a new urban quarter in the north inner city.

Presumably little will emerge on Friday regarding any such specifics but chamber members will nonetheless be invited to hear the thoughts of architect Friedrich Ludewig on the rebirth of a new mixed-use district for commerce, shopping, and residence.

Mr Ludewig has steered a range of international projects including the London Olympics Masterplan and has taught at Harvard University, Darmstadt University and the Royal College of Art in London.