AELLA OFFER BREAKS ICG DEADLOCK - The independent board members at Irish Continental Group have recommended that shareholders accept a new offer for the company made this morning by Aella, the management-led group headed by chief executive Eamonn Rothwell.
Aella has made a new offer of €24 per share for the firm, valuing ICG at just about €612m. The group's first offer, made in March, was for €18.50 a share.
Two groups - Aella and Moonduster, run by One51 and Doyle Shipping - had proposed bids of €22 per share, and developer Liam Carroll has been building a shareholding to over 19%.
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EURO SET TO STAY STRONG AGAINST DOLLAR - While something like a recovery is taking place this morning, currency markets last week were as volatile as the stock markets.
Particularly, the Japanese yen advanced the most against the euro since March 2000 as the sub-prime mortgage crisis spread through global credit markets. This made investors sell their riskier assets which they had funded by borrowing in Japan.
Borrowing in a cheap currency to buy elsewhere is called the 'carry trade'. And the yen gained against all 16 major currencies last week as the carry trades unwound.
John Beggs, chief economist at AIB Global Treasury, said the dollar had been strengthening against the euro before the US Federal Reserve's rate cut on Friday. He said the euro was likely to remain firm against the US currency, as the underlying trend was negative for the dollar because of concerns about the Us economy.
The economist said there was a good chance that the European Central Bank would hold off on another interest rate rise in September, and would probably wait to see what the situation was in October.
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NEWS IN BRIEF AND MARKETS - Oil prices are down as it looks like Hurricane Dean will avoid the main production centres.
On the currency markets the euro is trading at $1.34 and 68p sterling.
