MARKETS TAKING GREEK TRAGEDY WELL - Ireland is not looking for a write-down on its debts and intends to pay them in full, the Taoiseach Enda Kenny said last night in New York on his trip to encourage foreign investment here. We also heard this week that investor Michael Hasenstab (of Franklin Templeton Investments) is placing big bets on Ireland's ability to recover. Meanwhile, NAMA chairman Frank Daly also said last night that there is growing interest from overseas investors in Irish commercial property, particularly prime office and retail properties in Dublin.
Markets analyst Paul Sommerville says that we should remain sceptical about the ''bond whizz kid'' buying up to €4 billion of Irish bonds. He points out that he is very rich investor and questions why he has turned up in the newspapers as he is simply betting on a change in the bond price after recent ECB moves to improve liquidity.
Mr Sommerville says the current difficulties in Greece have been taken quite well by the markets because of the ''good job'' done by the ECB to improve liquidity in the euro zone. He says investors are wondering whether the ECB is making profits on its Greek bonds and says any change in that would be good news for Ireland. While he believes a deal will be done on Greece over the next week, he says we will find ourselves back here in June and predicts that Greece will eventually be kicked out of the euro zone.
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MORNING BRIEFS - French oil major Total today posted a 2011 net profit of €12.3 billion, up by 16% on the previous year as higher oil prices offset a slight dip in production. It was the group's best result since 2008, a statement said, and came despite a slip of 1% in production.
*** The chairman of the National Asset Management Agency - Frank Daly - has said NAMA plans to acquire property assets from receivers or borrowers, and then package them in various combinations for sale to investors. These portfolios will be based on asset types or geography. Speaking last night to the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, Frank Daly said NAMA had made progress in obtaining charges over assets that were previously not being used for loans, and reversing transfers of assets by borrowers to family members. This could provide up to €500m in fresh security for its loans, after negotiations with borrowers. The NAMA chairman also said there was growing interest from overseas investors in Irish commercial property, particularly prime office and retail properties in Dublin.
*** Social networking website LinkedIn has reported higher profits and said it added 14 million new members in the last three months of 2011. Its net income came to $6.9m, up from $5.3m in the same period of 2010. Revenue rose 105% to $167.7 million. LinkedIn floated on the stock exchange last year, and has more than 150 million members worldwide.
*** Shares in daily voucher website Groupon fell 14% after it reported an unexpected loss yesterday. In its first set of results since listing on Nasdaq stock exchange in November, Groupon reported a net loss of $42.7m, when a small profit had been expected.
*** On the currency markets the euro is trading at $1.3250 cents and 83.98 pence sterling.
