DATA ELECTRONICS TO INVEST €25m IN NEW DATA CENTRE Markets this morning in Asia have been trading higher, with the Hang Seng up 3.2% and the Nikkei up 1.6%, off earlier highs. This follows a week that saw billions wiped off the value of Irish shares on an Irish market which fell by 5%, and talk of belt tightening at major Irish firms. But it is not all doom and gloom - big money is still there for expansion, and Irish firm Data Electronics is making a large investment in a new data centre in Ballycoolin, Dublin 15. The company, which provides IT outsourcing and managed services, is spending €25m on its data centre. The expansion has the potential to double to company's workforce to over 100 when complete.
Data Electronic's CEO Maurice Mortell says that over the last 12 months, there has been a lack of commerical data centre space in the Irish market. The data market has been growing at an average of 10-15% a year and the pipeline looks strong for the future, Mr Mortell says.
Mr Mortell says that with the announcement of the single energy market two weeks ago and the large power demand of commercial data centres, he says that it would be great if Finance Minister Brian Cowen could get some more 'real' competition into the energy market. The Minister is due to deliver Budget 2008 next week.
*** BRAINS INTO BUSINESS SUMMIT - Today and tomorrow sees a gathering of over 350 scientists at City West for Science Summit 2007. The summit wants to stimulate more scientific collaboration between industry and universities and it is being run by Science Foundation Ireland.
Professor Frank Gannon, director general of SFI, says the idea behind the summit is to bring all of the researchers from the higher education institutes together to reiterate the importance of their role in the future of the Irish economy. The summit aims to to stimulate them to achieve world class standards in their research and to put a collective effort into making science and research the foundation of the economy.
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NORTHERN ROCK SELECTS VIRGIN GROUP AS PREFERRED BIDDER - Ailing British bank Northern Rock has named a consortium led by Richard Branson's Virgin Group as its preferred bidder. Virgin will immediately repay £11 billion of the estimated £25 billion the bank has borrowed from the Bank of England and there is a clear path to repaying the central bank loan in full, Northern Rock said in a statement. Northern Rock could be rebranded as Virgin if the offer wins through.
MORNING BRIEFS - Mobile phone services company Zamano has bought Dublin-based Red Circle in a reverse takeover worth up to €24.4m. Red Circle provides digital entertainment to mobile devices with over half a million active subscribers in Ireland, the UK, the US and Australia.
*** French president Nicholas Sarkozy is on a state visit in China. He used the occasion to spell out the EU's growing concern about China's exchange rate and trade policies, saying balanced international relations depend on a fair rate for the Chinese currency.
*** French industrialists visiting China say they have finalised trade deals worth almost €20 billion. France's state-owned nuclear energy group Areva has signed an €8 billion deal for two nuclear reactors and more than a decade of fuel. And planemaker Airbus has signed deals worth €8 billion.
*** Cement maker Ecocem has appointed Laurance Crowley its new chairman. Crowley was formerly chairman of the Michael Smurfit Business School and more recently governor at Bank of Ireland.
*** Australia's financial markets have endorsed the Labour Party's decisive election victory, making solid gains on the first trading day after John Howard's conservative government was swept from power.
*** On the currency markets this morning, the euro is trading at $1.4820 and 71.8 pence sterling.
