EURO NEARS HISTORIC $1.50 LEVEL - They said it would never happen but it is about to as the euro stands this morning just less than a cent below the $1.50 mark. The record high euro means that Irish companies exporting to the US are finding the going tough.
John Whelan, CEO of the Irish Exporters Association, says that the $1.50 level puts a lot of Irish companies in very severe financial difficulties as their profit lines are being seriously eroded and their margins are being reduced to non-existent proportions. In trying to plan their sales programme for the US for the next few months they are having to buy forward at a $1.50 rate. The effect of this is a 25% increase in costs for the company.
He says that both indigenous and multinational companies will feel the damaging effect of the weak dollar. Home grown companies will feel it very quickly, while multinationals will feel it through their offsets.
***
FOOD WEBSITE WINS KEY INTERNET AWARD - The Eircom Golden Spider Awards for websites were given out last night. The winner of the big prize was a company called CullyandSully.com. Cullen Allen from Cully and Sully says his business produces high quality soups and pies and sells them though Dunnes, Superquinn, SuperValu and the smaller supermarket groups here. Mr Allen says the people behind the company really believed that there should be somewhere online where people could get useful information on anything to do with food, including a text service for recipes.
***
MORNING BRIEFS - European planemaker Airbus has admitted that the falling dollar is actually putting its business at risk. Before all this, the company was planning to let 10,000 of its workers go. The expectation is that it will now have to make further savings of in excess of €1 billion.
*** Wind energy company Airtricity announced yesterday that it is selling up. The firm recently sold its US business for around $1.4 billion and the expectation is that it could fetch between €1.5-2 billion for the rest, which includes work it had in the pipeline in Europe and China. The deadline for the sale process is the middle of next year. Eddie O'Connor, the man who founded the company and is its CEO, stands to make a big pot of money out of the sale with his 4% holding. Estimates vary from €20m to €80m.
*** The National Executive Council of trade union SIPTU has supported calls for people to 'Buy Irish' this Christmas. The union says buying Irish made products for Christmas is especially important at a time of increasing economic uncertainty. That is meant to make all those bound for New York over the next few weeks feel a bit guilty.
*** Business support services group DCC has expanded its presence in Britain through the acquisition of Squadron Medical for a total of €16m. Squadron buys and supplies medical and surgical products on a 'just in time basis' to hospitals.
*** ESB Chairman Tadhg O'Donoghue is to retire in January after serving a seven-year term.
