INVESTORS REMAIN CONCERNED DESPITE GREEK RESCUE DEAL - Euro zone leaders are willing to raise €23 billion to save Greece, with a combination of co-ordinated bilateral loans from its euro zone partners as well as International Monetary Fund assistance. While euro zone leaders have been talking about Greece, and ratings agencies have been looking for trouble in the rest of the single currency bloc, the euro itself has been suffering. This week the euro hit depths not seen since last May, but last night's accord may have stopped that fall.
Mark O'Byrne, a director at Goldcore, says that the Greek rescue package has to be welcomed and equity markets overnight have reacted well to the agreement. He points out that all the Asian markets were higher overnight and the euro recovered some of its lost ground. But he says that investors remain concerned that this might be just another one in a long string of announcements and adds that the details of the deal remain sketchy.
He also says that the euro's current weakness is the biggest currency risk for Ireland since the 1970s.
***
MORNING BRIEFS - Following months of talks and missed deadlines, the sale of Independent News and Media's London titles - The Independent and The Independent on Sunday - to Alexander Lebedev, was completed yesterday for the nominal fee of £1 sterling. The papers had been losing about £1m a month and last year their closure had been recommended by shareholder Denis O'Brien. Analysts say it could have cost the group up to £40m sterling to close the titles, because of long-term deals for printing and other obligations. Over the next few months, as part of the deal, Independent will pay Mr Lebedev over €10m to take on 'all future trading liabilities and obligations' of the titles.
*** Figures from ComReg show that An Post delivered 84% of standard mail throughout the country within one working day last year. While that figures was up from 79% the year before, it is still short of the 94% target set by the regulator. ComReg said there had been particular improvements in the delivery of post from Dublin. 98.3% of all mail was delivered within three working days, short of the 99.5% target.
*** The euro is trading at $1.3340 cents and 89.63 pence sterling this morning.
