EIRCOM SEEKING A BUYER - Last evening, Eircom's parent company announced that it had started the process of putting the company up for sale. Potential buyers are being asked to express their interest by mid-March.
Irish Times Business Affairs Correspondent Ciaran Hancock said there had been an unofficial sales process last year. Eircom has €3.65 billion of debt.
He said it hopes to attract an external financial investor to pump money into the company, and is also hoping bondholders will take a writedown of their debt.
STT, which had a 65% stake, put a proposal on the table last year, but it was rejected by bondholders, which led STT to walk away. He said it was not clear at the moment who would be interested in Eircom.
Mr Hancock said there no expectation that Eircom would go out of business, and its current restructuring talks were being seen as a step along the way towards some sort of examinership.
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EXPORTS BRIGHT SPOT IN MANUFACTURING REPORT - New figures show that activity in the manufacturing sector of the economy fell for the third month in a row in January, despite continued growth in export orders.
NCB's purchasing managers' index recorded 48.3, down from 48.6 in December. Any figure below 50 means that activity fell.
NCB economist Brian Devine said domestic demand was weak, though export orders were picking up.
He said the survey suggested that export orders from the euro area were particularly weak in January, but he expected Irish exports to expand overall in 2012.
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NEWS IN BRIEF AND CURRENCIES - Online retail giant Amazon has announced a sharp fall in profits and warned about worse than expected results this year. Net income for the three months to the end of December was $177m (£114m), down from $416m a year earlier. The fall came despite an increase in revenues during the period to $17.43 billion, up 35%.
*** There are reports that Facebook is to submit paperwork to US regulators later today for a $5 billion initial public offering.
*** The euro is worth $1.3050 and 83.05p sterling.
