DESPITE ICESAVE REFERENDUM REJECTION, ICELAND SAYS IT WILL PAY BACK DEBTS - The people of Iceland have spoken - over the weekend they rejected their government's plan to repay almost €4 billion in compensation to the UK and Dutch people. Both governments had to compensate Icesave account holders with Iceland's Landsbanki bank which collapsed in the credit crunch. Opponents of the plan claim it would have delayed Iceland's economic recovery. The compensation was worth €12,000 for every man woman and child in the country.
Richard Hunter, of Hargreaves Lansdowne in London, says the move by Icelanders was not unexpected, but adds that Iceland still intends to repay the debt. He says it was a 'quirk' of Icelandic law that the referendum actually went ahead at all and was based on the initial offer that the UK and Dutch governments had come up with. The terms of that offer have since been improved. He says the initial offer is believed to have included a 5.5% interest rate repayable over 15 years, with a payment holiday for the first seven years. However, those terms have been subsequently improved and the repayments will take over a substantial amount of years. He stresses that all of the parties concerned believe the debt will be repaid in full.
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BIZ-SPARK PROGRAMME BENEFITING THE ECONOMY - One of Microsoft's top international executives is in Ireland today listening to small Irish technology companies about their ambitions to get bigger. Microsoft set up Biz-Spark here a year ago - its aim is to push the growth of start up companies.
Cliffe Reeves heads up a team at Microsoft called the Emerging Business Team. He says that Biz-Spark puts the company's software 'easily' into the hands of entrepreneurs, as the company recognises that entrepreneurship is easily the single biggest driver of economic growth over the long haul. He says that small companies can achieve big things in technology and by giving them free and very liberal access to the technology is good for the economy and good for Microsoft.
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MORNING BRIEFS - The monthly Ulster Bank purchasing mangers index on the health of the construction sector finds the rate of decline in activity has slowed for a second consecutive month. The pace of contraction is slowing but the sector is still blighted by a lack of new business coming through. February was the 34th consecutive month of job cuts in the building industry.
*** Tender prices in the building industry are 29% lower than at their 2007 peak, according to the Society of Chartered Surveyors. They says that despite many firms taking on jobs at below cost, there is little appetite amongst government or the private sector to spend.
*** A Freedom of Information request in the Irish Times reveals that 236 of the original 836 people who applied to become members of the board of the National Asset Management Agency passed the first round of shortlisting. These were subsequently whittled down to 36, with six appointees joining chairman Frank Daly along with the chief executives of NAMA and the NTMA to make up the nine member board of the Agency.
**** There is speculation today that Aer Lingus may delay publication of its annual results, due tomorrow, because of the uncertainty around acceptance of the airline's cost cutting plan following its rejection by cabin crew at the end of last week.
*** On the currency markets, the euro is worth $1.3682 and 90.21 pence sterling.
