SLATTERY PLANNING ANOTHER NEW AIR VENTURE - The financier behind Claret Capital and the aircraft taxi company Jetbird, which has repeatedly failed to meet its launch date targets and has laid off most of its employees, is planning something much more ambitious. Domhnall Slattery is looking to establish a new aircraft leasing company called Avolon. He is in discussions with US private equity company Oak Hill to raise up to $500m - almost €340m - and is seeking to raise another $800m of debt. The idea is to exploit the recession to buy up to 120 passenger aircraft at discount prices and lease them to airlines...
The Irish Times' business affairs correspondent, Ciaran Hancock, says that people must take this venture seriously. He says that Mr Slattery was very successful in the aircraft leasing business in the mid 1990s after leaving GPA. He sold this to RBS for €25m in 2001 and helped RBS build that business into the third biggest aircraft leasing business in the world before he went off again and established Claret Capital and got into the private equity business. It has now emerged that he has 'poached' seven senior executives from RBS Aviation Capital, which is now restructuring its entire business given the economic downturn and the credit crunch.
The journalist says that Mr Slattery is still having problems with Jetbird, however, which he envisioned as an 'Ryanair-style' executive jet service. But Jetbird has experienced funding problems, has missed three launch dates last year and laid off staff.
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MORNING BRIEFS - As the banks groan about taxes on bonuses driving talent out of banking, Professor Stefano Harney, from the School of Business and Management at Queen Mary College in London, asks do people really want their smartest people in the banks? He says the world's smartest people should be working on cancer cures or trying to invent cars that run on coffee-grinds.
*** Chip maker Intel, an enormous employer here, has reported a 28% increase in revenue for the final three months of last year. It also delivered a financial forecast which was well ahead of Wall Street expectations. Revenue rose to $10.6 billion from $8.2 billion a year earlier, and was well above the Wall Street target of roughly $10.2 billion.
*** US President Obama has been laying down the law on how he is going to levy financial companies with assets in excess of $50 billion a total of $117 billion over ten years, to cover the cost of TARP. The Troubled Asset Relief Programme was the bail-out fund put together to rescue the US banking system. The levy is now being called the 'Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee' and will apply to firms with financial assets of over $50 billion. The president criticised banks which are returning to massive profits and obscene bonuses though they owe their continued existence to tax payers. Republicans claims the tax will be passed on to customers.
*** On the currency markets, the euro is worth $1.4421 US cents and 88.28 pence sterling.
