HIBERNIAN OWNER SELLS OFF INDIAN OUTSOURCER AGS - Hibernian's parent company Aviva last night announced it had sold off the Indian outsourcing business that was due to begin servicing the Irish market from 2009, says the Irish Independent. The deal means Hibernian's future Indian operations will now be serviced by Mumbai-based services giant WNS and not Aviva Group Services (AGS), as announced in late June. At the time, Hibernian said it was moving 580 Irish jobs offshore to AGS, stressing that AGS had "won several awards for the quality of its customer service" while "all 6,400 employees are graduates and proficient in English". Yesterday, Indian giant WNS confirmed it had paid £115m (€144m) for the AGS business, while Aviva also made a stock exchange disclosure. The two companies have also signed an eight-year and a four-month contract to provide back office functions to Aviva's Irish, UK and Canadian operations. 'The partnership between our parent company Aviva plc and WNS is integral to Hibernian's plans to reorganise its business to deliver sustained growth,' Hibernian chief executive Stuart Purdy said.
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IRISH DIAGNOSTICS FIRM SOLD TO ITALIAN GROUP FOR €25m - Irish diagnostics company Biotrin has been sold to Italian firm Diasorin for €25 million, writes the Irish Times. The purchase will see Diasorin acquiring the infectious disease diagnostics business of Biotrin. This month the organ-damage biomarker business of Biotrin was spun out into a separate company, Argutus Medical Ltd. Biotrin founder Dr Cormac Kilty will be the chief beneficiary of the sale. He owned 67% of the company, which was set up in 1992. Senior managers held another 23%, while Enterprise Ireland held the remaining 10%. The Irish management team will be remaining with the company, and Biotrin's current operations will stay in Dublin, where it has research, production and marketing operations. Diasorin intends to expand Biotrin's business by adapting tests to its automated laboratory test instruments. Biotrin is the world leader in tests for Human Parvovirus B19, a virus that can cause miscarriage in pregnancy. It recently signed an exclusive worldwide licence agreement with the United States National Institutes of Health to develop tests to monitor the efficacy of new cervical cancer vaccines that have been licensed in Europe and the US.
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BARRATT SECURES NEW FINANCE BUT CUTS 1,200 STAFF AND DIVIDEND - Barratt Developments is cutting 1,200 jobs, scrapping its final dividend and writing down the value of its land bank by £85m, as sales plummet to just half the level of a year ago, says the London Independent. The whole housebuilding sector is reeling from the effects of the credit crunch on the property market and Barratt's redundancies take the number of jobs shed by the construction industry to more than 6,000 in the past week alone. Redrow and Bovis Homes are cutting 450 and 400 jobs respectively, Taylor Wimpey is to lose 900 and Persimmon a massive 2,000 staff across its operations. But Barratt's news is not all bad. Last month the group's shares went into freefall as investors were spooked by the level of debt and there were widespread expectations of an emergency rights issue to keep the company going. Such drastic measures have been averted by renegotiated banking covenants, and a new £400m loan, the company said yesterday. The stock closed up 24 per cent at 67p.
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BUFFETT HELPS DOW PAY $19bn FOR ROHM & HAAS - The changing face of global finance came into stark relief on Thursday as Dow Chemical tapped Warren Buffett and Kuwait's sovereign wealth fund to help pay for its $18.8bn takeover of its US rival Rohm & Haas, writes the Financial Times. The proposed cash deal, which places a large premium on R&H's recent valuation, will leave Mr Buffett as the single largest shareholder in the enlarged group and cement long-standing ties between Kuwait's government and Dow.
