INTEL REJECTS LEIXLIP DELAY REPORTS - The Irish Times says Intel Ireland has denied there is any delay to the $500m (€345m) refurbishment of its facilities in Leixlip, Co Kildare, which is currently employing 850 construction staff.
'There is no change to our plans for Fab 14,' the paper quotes a spokesman as saying, referring to the factory on the Leixlip plant that is being refurbished in advance of a new manufacturing investment. He also confirmed that the 200 technology jobs announced in January in relation to the project had already been filled.
Construction work began on the refurbishment of Fab 14, one of the older factories on the Leixlip campus, at the start of the year. The lead contractor is DPS Engineering, a specialist project management and engineering company. However, subcontractors who contacted The Irish Times yesterday said they had been informed the project was being delayed by up to 12 months.
The Intel spokesman said the company had a policy of not commenting on the activities of its contracting firms. 'In a project with a duration of two years there are various demands for different skills at different times,' he said.
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PERMANENT TSB 'PROFIT BY 2014' - The Irish Independent says the Government has told the European Commission that bailed-out Permanent TSB is on track to turn a profit by 2014. The paper says the claim was made in a restructuring plan sent to Brussels at the end of July, around the same time as the bank received €2.8 billion of state support.
The Indo says speculation about Permanent TSB's future has been rife since the Government decided to make AIB and Bank of Ireland 'pillars' and fold EBS into AIB.
It says sources this week have confirmed, however, that the restructuring plan submitted to the EC foresees Permanent TSB's remaining as a standalone bank.
With a heavy bias towards unprofitable tracker loans, Permanent TSB's €37.5 billion loan book is expected to suffer about €800m a year in impairments from 2011 to 2013. But the Indo says the bank's management believe they can bring it back to profit by 2014, and also expect to have normalised the bank's funding situation by that time.
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BODY'S CONCERN ON BANKS' GREEK WRITEDOWNS - The Financial Times reports on concerns that some European financial institutions should have taken bigger losses on their Greek government bond holdings in recent results announcements.
The FT says the body that sets the banks' accounting rules, the European Securities and Markets Authority, sent a private letter the EU's market regulator, the International Accounting Standards Board, criticising the inconsistent way in which banks and insurers have been writing down the value of their Greek sovereign debt.
'This is a matter of great concern to us,' Hans Hoogervorst, IASB chairman, said in the letter, which was seen by the Financial Times.
The FT quotes people familiar with the IASB's letter as saying that the intervention was unprecedented and reflected its belief that some European companies had not been making enough provisions for Greek sovereign debt losses.
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MERRION HOTEL BACK IN THE BLACK - The Irish Examiner reports that the five-star hotel US President Barack Obama checked into, but never stayed at, returned to pre-tax profit last year.
It quotes accounts just filed with the Companies Office as showing that the Merrion Hotel recorded a modest pre-tax profit of €34,599 in the 12 months to the end of October last year. This followed Hotel Merrion Ltd incurring a loss of €568,640 in 2009 and €607,500 in 2008.
During their state visit last May, President Obama and his wife Michelle checked into the Merrion hotel, but did not stay overnight as planned due to their early departure from the country brought about by ash cloud disruption.
The figures show that the company's gross profit increased marginally from €5.14m to €5.15m last year.
