FIRM CLAIMS IT WAS EXCLUDED FROM SITESERV SALE TO O'BRIEN - A French company has claimed it was denied the opportunity to make an offer for Irish company Siteserv which businessman Denis O’Brien is poised to acquire this week for €45 million. The Altrad group, which owns companies in the same areas of business as Siteserv, said at the weekend that it had been prepared to offer €60 million for the Irish firm. But it was effectively denied the opportunity because its representative was told the Irish group was not for sale. Siteserv is a listed company that provides construction services such as scaffolding and hoarding to industries including utilities, oil refineries, satellite and telecommunications, and infrastructure for outdoor events. Its shareholders will be asked next Thursday to approve an agreement to sell the group to an investment vehicle controlled by Mr O’Brien for just over €45 million. Shareholders, including chief executive Brian Harvey, Chris Neate and John Neal, will make €5 million from the deal, but the State-owned Irish Banking Resolution Corporation (IBRC - formerly Anglo Irish) will get just €40 million of the €150 million owed to it by the company.
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BUNDESBANK TO REJECT IRISH BONDS - Bank bonds guaranteed by the Government will no longer be accepted as collateral by Germany’s Central Bank - in a move which is certain to make it harder for the National Treasury Management Agency to re-enter bond markets, says the Irish Examiner. The European Central Bank gave all of the euro zone’s 17 national central banks permission not to accept bank bonds underwritten by governments in EU/IMF bailout programmes - Ireland, Portugal and Greece - as collateral to get unlimited ultra-cheap loans. The Deutsche Bundesbank has confirmed it is the first European central bank to avail of the change of rules starting with €500m already on its balance sheet, a spokeswoman said. A NTMA spokesman said they would not be commenting on the unilateral move by the Bundesbank. The rejection of Irish and other bonds could take up to a month to come into force, according to a Bundesbank spokeswoman as the Bundesbank is obliged to give notice to its business partner banks of the changes in "terms and conditions".
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IRISH ARM OF SEX-TOY SHOP ANN SUMMERS GOES INTO THE RED - The main Irish operation of lingerie and sex toy retailer Ann Summers has gone into the red, reports the Irish Independent. The UK-owned company has its flagship Irish store on the capital's O'Connell Street as well as shops in Limerick and Cork. Accounts just filed by Ann Summers Ireland Retail (ASIRL) show the firm recorded a pre-tax loss of €80,025 last year, following a pre-tax profit of €748,447 in fiscal 2010. Figures for the 12 months to the end of June 25 last year show that revenues at the firm dipped by 9% to €3m. However, the figures show that since the company's entry into the Irish market, ASIRL has accumulated profits of €3.1m. The numbers employed by the firm last year decreased from 34 to 30. The firm recorded a gross profit of €2.36m last year, compared to €2.67m in 2010.
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BIG BANKS PREPARE TO PAY BACK LTRO LOANS - A clutch of Europe’s biggest banks are preparing to return a chunk of the cheap three-year funding they recently took from the European Central Bank as early as this year, says the Financial Times. Senior bankers said Italy’s UniCredit, France’s BNP Paribas and Société Générale, and La Caixa in Spain are preparing to pay back up to a third of the money they borrowed - estimated at €80-€100 billion in total - within the next 12 months. The so-called longer-term refinancing operation, or LTRO, has been widely hailed as the defining policy measure by Mario Draghi, the ECB president, which stabilised jittery eurozone markets. The unprecedented scheme, launched last December and repeated in February, gave hundreds of banks an aggregate €1 trillion of ECB money at an interest rate of just 1%. The money is repayable in December 2014 and February 2015. But under the rules of the operation, banks are allowed to begin repayment after the first 12 months - in December this year. The early repayment plans echo moves by some US banks in 2009 to repay their government bailout money as quickly as possible.
