NIGHTLINE TO SET UP PARCEL MOTELS NATIONWIDE - Independent delivery service Nightline has itself taken an important delivery from Poland this morning. John Tuohy, the chief executive of the company, says the company has received its first postal motel, which he describes as an ATM for parcels. He says the company will be rolling out about 400 of these around the country over the next year in petrol stations and convenience stores.
Mr Tuohy says that online retail sales are surging despite the still weak consumer sentiment here and consumers want more convenient ways of getting their deliveries, especially if they are out all day at work and miss normal deliveries. He says that growth in online sales is coming from big UK business names like Debenhams and Karen Millen.
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MORNING BRIEFS - Spanish energy company Endesa has sold its Irish assets at a loss to SSE, the company which already owns Airtricity. It has paid €320m for power stations which cost Endesa some €450m to purchase from the ESB in 2009. SSE is also putting in €168m in investment which will be used among other things to finish construction on a plant at Great Ireland in Wexford which it is acquiring as part of that deal. The company says several hundred new jobs will result both in construction and at SSE's Irish operations as a result of the deal announced this morning.
*** Irish food company Greencore has sold a chilled dessert factory in the UK to the German firm Muller for £4.3m.
*** The world's central banks stand ready to act to prevent another credit crunch occurring whatever the result of and fallout from those key Greek elections at the weekend. Officials from the G20 group of the world's richest nations, which meets in Mexico next week, have said central banks will step in to provide cash if required. That news boosted both US shares overnight, which were up around 1% on Wall Street, and helped Asian markets finish in positive territory despite the level of fear out there in investment markets. Yesterday borrowing costs for Spain breached the 7% mark for the first time in the history of the euro zone. That is seen as a level which, if it is maintained, would make Spanish borrowing unsustainable and push it into bailout territory.
*** The Irish social network Skillpages, which brings together skilled professionals looking for work with people who need work done, has raised $9.5m in fresh investment from a variety of sources including U2 manager Paul McGuinness. Skillpages is on target to hit 10 million users by the end of this year. It currently employs 32 people and is in the process of hiring 20 more. It was founded by entrepreneur Iain McDonald who sold his telecoms company Perlico to Vodafone in an €80m deal back in 2007.
