The Irish Independent reports that Bank of Ireland has agreed a deal with unions that the bank hopes will close a €1bn pension shortfall and provide a capital boost to the lender.
The deal, which has to be formally approved by staff, will mean a €400m accounting boost to the bank.
That gain is expected to help ease the way towards an expected capital raising as early as this year, when the bank is expected to tap investors for cash to help repay a share of €1.8bn of so-called preference shares used by the State to rescue the lender.
The pension deal is in relation to the Bank Staff Pensions Fund, the group's biggest pension scheme that has 80% of all the bank's pension liabilities.
BoI said agreement to restructure the scheme has been agreed with the Irish Bank Officials Association, the main staff union following talks at the Labour Relations Commission.
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Trade creditors appear set to oppose the granting of court protection to building group Siac Construction, which owes its banks €42 million, when the case goes to a full hearing in two weeks time, reports The Irish Times.
Michael McAteer of Grant Thornton has been appointed as interim examiner to Siac Construction and eight related companies, giving them protection from creditors until a full hearing of the case on 6 November. The protection could then be extended to 70 days.
Speaking after the High Court ruling, Graham Sheehan of Sabre Electrical Services, and Chris Hooley of KC Civil Engineering, said they and other unsecured creditors are likely to oppose, confirming the examiner’s appointment to the group and extending the court’s protection.
“We are going to object to the examinership,” Mr Hooley said. He added that it was possible that up to 30 unsecured creditors could join forces to lodge the objection.
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Cork company PCH International has teamed up with the Tyndall Institute in a collaboration to build the next generation of high-tech start-ups in Ireland, according to The Irish Examiner.
The memorandum of understanding was made at the launch of the research facility’s five-year strategic plan, which aims to contribute to the generation of more than 500 jobs in high-tech start-up companies, new multinationals investing in Ireland, and established Irish companies.
Founder of PCH International, Liam Casey, is already involved in what is seen as a world-leading hardware incubators, Highway1 in San Francisco and the PCH Accelerator programme.
The memo provides for close collaboration between the incubation programmes and Tyndall’s international network of over 200 industry clients to identify market opportunities.
Mr Casey said that he can foresee world-class health and wellness start-ups emerging from the Tyndall.
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The Financial Times reports that YouTube is poised to launch a tiered music subscription service that will stream audio and video, increasing the competition in a nascent market dominated by Spotify.
Google-owned YouTube will offer a paid and advertising-supported service, according to people familiar with the matter. It is unclear how the service will fit with Google’s own music subscription service, which also competes with Spotify.
YouTube offers some transactional services, such as renting movies online, but is primarily known as a free video site.
According to people familiar with the plans, Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s head of content, and Shishir Mehrota, vice-president of product management and engineering, are behind the new music service, news of which was first reported by Billboard magazine.
Mr Kyncl is the architect of YouTube’s push into original content and its channels strategy. The company has funded hundreds of new online channels from established artists and new video talent in a bid to boost the quality of programming available on YouTube – and the advertising revenue it generates.
The company recently opened a working studio in Los Angeles, which is available for content creators to use for free.
