Morning business news

'HEARTLESS' MARKETS BOUNCE BACK FROM 9/11 - Today is the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York. It took the US stock market six weeks to recover from the collapse in share prices in the aftermath. If anything the resilience of the markets has improved in the wake of terrorist attacks in other financial centres such as Madrid and London.

Eugene Kiernan of AIB Investment Managers said world markets are up around 20% - and the Irish market 40% higher - compared with five years ago.

Mr Kiernan said markets were heartless, and asked themselves only two questions: how events would affect interest rates and profit levels. He said the answers to those two questions determined the direction of markets.

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IRISH FIRMS ATTRACT INTERNATIONAL BUYERS - Irish owned businesses are becoming ever more valuable. That is probably not surprising given the spending power in the economy generally. There is lots of ambition to acquire or be acquired but little ambition to start a business dynasty.

Those are among the findings of a survey of business ambition and strategy published this morning.

Ted Webb, a director of IBI Corporate Finance, which sponsored the research, said strong economic confidence meant Irish companies had become more attractive to international buyers. Mr Webb said the report had found that Irish firms had never been more able to compete internationally.

Only one-third of owners of companies surveyed expected to transfer ownership to another family members. Mr Webb said the bigger companies who were able to compete internationally were bringing in more professional managers from outside.

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NEWS IN BRIEF AND MARKETS - Media group UTV has reported pre-tax profits of £8.5m for the first half of this year, up from £8m in the same period last year. Group sales were up 60% to £57m, helped by acquisitions.

The euro is worth $1.2680 and 67.9p sterling.