NTMA LINING UP ITS FIRST 15-YEAR BOND TO PAY OFF IMF LOANS - The Government is expected to issue its first 15-year bonds later this year, taking advantage of super-cheap borrowing rates to raise cash to pay off the IMF, writes the Irish Independent. Politicians in Germany will vote tomorrow on whether or not to support the Irish Government's plan to raise cash on the markets between now and the end of 2016 to repay €18.3 billion of expensive IMF loans. The scheme will save Ireland an estimated €2.1 billion interest payments, according to papers sent to the German parliament the Bundestag, which include letters from Finance Minister Michael Noonan. That is based on an expected borrowing cost of 1.88% for 10-year bonds compared to the 5% the IMF is charging even for shorter term loans. The German vote, needed because all euro zone countries that contributed to the EU/IMF bailout have to give their approval to allowing the IMF to be repaid ahead of Europe's own bailout funds, is widely expected to pass. European governments, the IMF and the main European institutions support the Irish plan.
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DOYLE COLLECTION HOTEL GROUP BACK IN THE BLACK - The Irish-owned Doyle Collection hotel group returned to the black in 2013, a year when the company sold three of its properties in the US and refinanced its bank debt. Latest accounts for Doyle Hotels (Holdings) Ltd show that the company recorded a profit after tax of €4.1 million last year compared with a loss of €3.5 million in 2012, says the Irish Times. Turnover for the Irish hotel group fell to €108.5 million from €126.5 million last year. This reflected the impact of the sale of three hotels in the US - the Back Bay in Boston, and the Normandy and Courtyard properties in Washington DC. On a like-for-like basis, turnover rose by 2.2%. Excluding the hotels that were sold, the company recorded earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of €24.4 million, which was in line with the previous year when the effects of currency were taken into account. The Doyle group achieved net proceeds of €108.9 million from the sale of the US hotels. They had been valued on the books at €107.1 million, thereby releasing a profit of just under €1.8 million to the group.
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ARYZTA FOODS PAID MANAGEMENT TEAM €12.8m IN 2014, 70% MORE THAN 2013 - Irish-Swiss baked foods producer, Aryzta paid its executive management team 15.5m Swiss francs (€12.8m) in the last financial year, a 70% rise on the previous year, says the Irish Examiner. According to the group’s recently published annual report, chief executive Owen Killian - one of the highest paid heads of an Irish-related plc in recent years - took home a basic salary of almost 1.28m Swiss francs (€1.05m), unchanged from the previous financial year, but the mix of performance-related bonuses, long-term incentives and pension contributions boosted his 2014 remuneration package to 6.14m Swiss francs (€5.06m). That marked a significant increase on Mr Killian’s 2013 package, which amounted to 4.34m Swiss francs in total. A jump from 780,000 Swiss francs to nearly 1.3m Swiss francs in performance-related bonus largely drove the increase. The overall executive pay total - which also covers group chief financial officer/chief operating officer, Patrick McEniff and group general counsel and company secretary, Pat Morrissey - of 15.5m Swiss francs, was up from a total of just over 9m Swiss francs a year earlier. Total executive team bonuses amounted to just over 3.2m Swiss francs last year; up from just 1.6m Swiss francs in comparison to the previous financial year.
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CHINA CHANGES COURSE WITH HUGE BET ON EUROPEAN ASSETS - As investors fled Europe in the worst days of its sovereign debt crisis, China-based companies moved in the other direction and surged in, with cash flowing from China into some of the hardest-hit countries of the euro zone periphery. In 2010, the total stock of Chinese direct investment in the EU was just over €6.1 billion - less than what was held by India, Iceland or Nigeria. By the end of 2012, Chinese investment stock had quadrupled, to nearly €27 billion, according to figures compiled by Deutsche Bank. The buying spree, analysts say, was nothing short of a transformation of the model of Chinese outbound investment, writes the Financial Times. It is expected to increase steadily over the next decade. "We saw a massive spike in Chinese investment in Europe, particularly [mergers and acquisitions] during the height of the debt crisis," says Thilo Hanemann, an expert in Chinese outbound investment and research director at Rhodium Group, a research consultancy. "This was partly opportunistic buying because assets were cheap and partly it was a structural secular shift in Chinese outbound investment, from securing natural resources in developing countries to acquiring brands and technology in developed countries."
