QUINN FAMILY BLAME THE ACCOUNTANTS - Seán Quinn and his family have blamed the accountants who have run Quinn Insurance for the last year for the €706 million in losses uncovered at the company, says the Irish Times. US insurance giant Liberty Mutual and State-owned Anglo Irish Bank formally agreed to take over most of the business yesterday. Announcing the deal Michael McAteer and Paul McCann of accountants Grant Thornton said the losses - mostly on insurance policies written when the company was controlled by Seán Quinn in the run-up to their appointment - would lead to a call of up to €700 million on the State's Insurance Compensation Fund. This year it will have to provide €180 million. The claim is expected to result in a levy on all motor and household insurance policies in Ireland following a review of the fund by the Central Bank. The fund currently has €30 million in it and is financed by means of a levy on insurance companies. In October last year the administrators' lawyers told the High Court they had kept "a tight eye" on the company and Quinn Insurance would not have to avail of the Insurance Compensation Fund. The Quinn family claimed the company had €1.1 billion in assets and €464 million in property when the administrators were appointed.
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PRE-TAX PROFITS AT THE FAMILY CONTROLLED MUSGRAVE UP 3% - Pre-tax profits at Musgrave, the Cork-based owner of the SuperValu and Centra retail franchises, rose 3% last year to €72m despite overall group sales declining 3% to almost €4.4 billion, writes the Irish Independent. Operating profit fell 3.6%, however, to €75.6m. The privately held company, which is controlled by the Musgrave family, released the figures yesterday as part of its annual report. Group chief executive Chris Martin warned that he expects the remainder of the year to be tough as the trading environment remains difficult. The annual report also revealed that dividends totalling €17.1m were paid last year to the Musgrave family. That's down nearly 10% from the €19.1m they received in 2009 and lower than the €20.2m they were awarded in 2008. Musgrave, which also owns the Daybreak franchise as well as Budgens, Londis and Mace in Britain and Northern Ireland, had posted a 7% decline in profitability for 2009, while revenues that year slipped 3% to €4.5 billion. The company also has cash-and-carry and retail operations in Spain. Turnover last year was down just over 10% compared to the high of nearly €4.9 billion reported by Musgrave in 2007.
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SOFTWARE FIRM SEES PROFITS SURGE - Specialist software company Fineos boosted its pre-tax profits by nearly €2 million last year and saw revenues almost double, despite challenging marketing conditions, says the Irish Examiner. According to accounts filed with the Companies Office which covered the 12 months to the end of June last, pre-tax profits at the Dublin-headquartered firm went from just over €3.1m to €4.8m. The company's full year turnover went from €17.4m to €32.5m. Operating profit, meanwhile, rose from €3m to €4.6m. Fineos, which provides software solutions to the financial services sector and, more specifically, the insurance and bancassurance areas, was established in 1993. The company currently employs around 200 people across its Dublin office and associated offices in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada. The company's management said that while the company's market environment remained "very challenging" in the second half of the calendar year 2010, which was accentuated by a slowing in client spend across most geographies, actual market potential for its products has remained positive, with the company set to further invest in its pipeline.
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CHINA FACES PRESSURE TO ALTER ONE-CHILD POLICY - The number of elderly people in China has increased by more than the population of Spain over the past decade, increasing pressure on Beijing to abandon the one-child policy that has contributed to a rapidly ageing society, says the Financial Times. China unveiled new census results on Thursday which showed that the number of people over the age of 60 increased by around 48 millio, reaching 13.3% of the population. Ten years ago, they accounted for just over a tenth of the population. China's total population is now 1.339 billion, up 5.84% from the last decade. ''The census has triggered discussion of how population control needs to adapt," said Li Jianmin, head of the Institute of Population and Development Research at Nankai University. "We will see steps from the government to tweak it very soon." Underscoring the ageing society, the census also revealed that children under the age of 14 comprise less than one-sixth of the population, down from almost a quarter ten yeas ago. It also confirmed the speed at which China is urbanising, with the number of those living in cities and towns jumping to almost 50 per cent from just over a third in 2000.
